Read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/caribbean/news/story/2009/01/090122_firstblack.shtml Barack Obama may not be, after all, the first black president of the United States. According to research by several US historians and a Jamaican scholar, Mr Obama is actually the seventh black person to become president of the US. US presidents Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Dwight Eisenhower all had black ancestry, according to recent articles published in several US newspapers and on the Internet website DiversityInc. According to these reports, which are based on books by late Jamaican historian J A Rogers, by African-American Leroy Vaughn and others, Thomas Jefferson’s mother was part black as was his father. Mr Jefferson was described once by a political rival as the “son of a half breed Indian squaw and a Virginia mulatto father.” To hide his black past, the third president had all portraits of his mother, Jane, destroyed after her death, according to author Samuel Sloan. Political Enemies Under US racial classifications, anyone who has even one drop of black blood or has any black ancestors, no matter how far in the past, is considered to be ‘black.’ Abraham Lincoln, America’s 16th president, was nicknamed ‘Abraham Africanus’ and described as having dark skin and coarse hair by his political enemies. His parents, according to an 1864 book, were both Africans. Abraham Lincoln was nicknamed ‘Abraham Africanus’ After Lincoln freed the slaves in 1863, a political rival, Chauncey Burr, said, sarcastically, that Lincoln should be forgiven for showing “natural sympathy with his own race.” Andrew Jackson, America’s 7th president, was, according to a 1921 article in the Virginia Magazine of History, the son of an Irish woman who married a light-skinned black man. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president, is the only one of the presidents said to have black ancestry to express pride in his non-white ancestry. Mr Coolidge didn’t admit to having African blood, though. He said, according to reports, that his mother had curly, dark hair and dark skin because she was part Indian. America’s 34th president, Dwight Eisenhower was the son of light-skinned black people ‘passing’ for white, , according to a book by Auset Bhakufu. It has said that people who knew Eisenhower’s mother described her as "that black Links gal." West Indies Of all the presidents said to be black, Warren G. Harding, the 29th president, is the most intriguing. It’s claimed he was the son of a part black man and the great-grandson of a black woman who came to America from the West Indies. A political enemy of Harding’s, William Chancellor, began researching Mr Harding’s ancestry, according to a recent article by historian Beverley Gage, in the hope it could be used to lose him the 1920 election. Mr Chancellor claimed his research showed Mr Harding’s father-in-law, Amos Kling, cursed his daughter for marrying a black man and darkening the family line. DiversityInc's six previous 'black' presidents According to this account, Mr Kling, a wealthy banker, did not attend his daughter’s wedding nor speak to his son-in-law until 8 years after the marriage. And interestingly, Mr Harding, who attended a college founded to educate blacks, never denied he was black. Asked if he had any non white ancestry by a reporter he replied: “How do I know, Jim? One of my ancestors may have jumped the fence.” From time to time black people who claim they are relatives of Warren Harding come forward. Racial attitudes In 2005, a distant cousin of Harding’s, Marsha Stewart, published a book called, "Warren Harding U.S. President 29: Death By Blackness." She said she wrote her book because she did not want to keep the secret of Harding’s black ancestry any longer. At age 60, Marsha Stewart has lived long enough to see racial attitudes change dramatically in the US. Ms Stewart says she was contacted not long ago by Warren Harding's white grandchildren whom, to her great surprise, wanted to find out about the black side of their ancestry.
thts pretty awesome, im a big Lincoln fan and just all around american history fan and like to study it especially the time period around the civil war from about 1850 to 1870
ah..okay, probably stateside, its only just been published on the BBC..So for the Brits not such old news..
I remember either in 98 or 2000 when I saw on C-Span a small play by the owner of the Washingtonian called The Prez. It was about Warren Harding. His sister taught at black public school in DC.
You got a point. In my opinion this article really exposes the farce that is the "one drop rule". Looking at the pictures of these men; apart from Obama, most of the world would struggle to accept that any of these men have black traits/features...or should even be considered black.
I remember reading from the London Times of the Black ancestry of Queen Elisabeth II. There is mixture in the races.
Fascinating theories, but very little evidence. Sensational, historical taboid fodder. Because a political opponent called Abe Lincoln 'Africanus", that's proof positive he's a Black man?:neutral: Whateva...
But you can make a good case for J. Edgnar Hoover. There is a photograph of him that looks exactly like the actor Henry Lennox.