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Obama In Martha's Vineyard

By Staff

Obama with daughters
Taking a pause from the impending Medicare issue, US President Barack Obama along with his family is currently vacationing at the sprawling vacation home, Martha's Vineyard.

The Island has a rich history as decades ago, the island was a summer sanctuary for middle-class black families unwelcome elsewhere. Martin Luther King Jr. swam and wrote there. While a long time ago, Martha's Vineyard was home to blacks who defied the times to claim their place in island life.

The first Afro-American president arrived on the Island on August 23 after a brief delay caused by the Hurricane Bill, while eager families waited with flags and greeted the first family with cheers and signs reading "Aloha Obama Family" and "Hope, Obama".

Besides, the Obama family, the president was accompanied by senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and president's half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng.

Through his spokesman Bill Burton, Obama has asked the press to respect the privacy of the girls while they are out on vacation.

While, what might threaten to spoil the vacation is that Cindy Sheehan, the peace activist who staged a protest outside President Bush's Texas ranch in 2005, is rumoured be protesting in President Obama's vacation site in Martha's Vineyard over moving of troops out of Afghanistan. She had lost her son in the war in Afghanistan and since then she has been fighting against it.

In her press release she had charged: Obama "doesn't represent real change," and noted that July was the worst month for casualties of US soldiers in Afghanistan.

The president on the other had has told those guarding him that "Have a good time, take some walks on the beaches. Nobody's looking to make any news." .

AGENCIES

Story first published: Thursday, August 27, 2009, 16:59 [IST]