Monday, June 09, 2008
Obama Won't Be The First Black President
From Associated Content:
Author J.A. Rogers published a book in 1965 titled The 5 Negro Presidents: According to What White People Said They Were. This was a pamphlet sized book with the image of 29th President Warren G. Harding and his paternal grand-uncle (an African-American) Oliver Harding.
[...]
Harding was in office during the depression and on election day in 1920 people were reading in the papers that Harding was reported to be African-American because his father George Tryon Harding was biracial and his mother Phoebe Dickinson who's history according to Rogers' book was unknown was white.
Republican President Warren G. Harding's Presidential portrait
From Chicago's Northstar News:
Black male historians have written extensively that Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Dwight Eisenhower had black ancestors. These historians are Joel A. Rodgers, Dr. Leroy Vaughn, and Dr. Auset Bakhufu.
Black historians, however, were not the first to write about the five presidents' racially mixed families. White historians and political opponents also wrote about the men's black ancestors, but the books were either destroyed, went out of print or are hard to find.
[...]
Sen. Obama cannot obviously pass for white because of his dark skin color. Obama makes it clear he is the son of a Kenyan economist and white female anthropologist. [Oh, btw - if you're thinking the sentence you just read is "racist", then consider that The Northstar News' byline is "The Voice of Today's Black Man." - Drake.]
[...]
Rodgers, who died in 1966, wrote the book The Five Black Presidents, and Dr. Vaughn devotes a chapter to the five black presidents in his Black People and Their Place in World History. Rogers and Vaughn agree Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Harding and Coolidge had black ancestors.
Dr. Auset Bakhufu, author of The Six Black Presidents' Black Blood: White Masks includes Eisenhower.
Despite author Toni Morrison's 1998 New Yorker magazine article that claims Bill Clinton is the nation's first black president because of his womanizing and frequenting McDonald's restaurants, Clinton is not listed.
The strongest case for a president with black ancestry is Harding, the 29th president who served in office from 1921 to 1923.
White historians claim Harding was of English and Dutch ancestry, but in truth both his parents were black. Harding's black ancestors escaped from the South to the North via the Underground Railroad, according to the book Warren G. Harding, U.S. President 29: Death By Blackness, by Marsha Stewart, a black woman, who says she is a Harding descendent.
Historians bolster Harding's black ancestral background by noting where he attended college.
Harding graduated from Iberia College, a school in Iberia, Ohio, founded to educate fugitive slaves, according to historians. Iberia College has been renamed Ohio Central College. When Republicans asked Harding to deny his "Negro" Harding said, "How should I know whether or not one of my ancestors might have jumped the fence."
William Chancellor, a white professor of economics at Wooster College in Ohio, wrote about Harding's black ancestry in the 1923 book Warren Gamaliel Harding: President of the United States.
Chancellor called Harding "our first Negro president," and he wrote that Warren, his brother and sisters were reared and treated like "colored people." He also accused Harding of using makeup to lighten his facial complexion.
As soon as Harry M. Daugherty, Harding's attorney general, learned of the book, justice department officials seized all of the copies. Stewart says only three copies now exist. The New York Public Library owns a copy; the Princeton University Library owns one as does the library of the Ohio Historical Society, she adds.
Jackson was the nation's seventh president. He served from 1829 to 1837. Dr. Vaughn cites an article published in the Virginia Magazine of History that Jackson's oldest brother was sold into slavery.
Another account of Jackson's brother being sold into slavery is published in the 1960 book Ordeal of the Presidency by David Coyle.
Thomas Jefferson, the nation's third president, who served from 1801 to 1809, was the son of an Indian woman and a mulatto father, according to the 1867 book The Johnny Cake Papers, by Thomas Hazard.
Another author Samuel Sloan wrote that Jefferson destroyed all of the papers, portraits and personal effects of his mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson, when she died on March 31, 1776. He even wrote letters to everyone who had received a letter from his mother to ask that they return them, Sloan writes in his book The Slave Children of Thomas Jefferson.
Abraham Lincoln, the nation's 16th president, was the illegitimate son of an African man, Rodgers quotes Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Lincoln's mother, as saying. Abraham Lincoln was very dark skinned and had coarse hair, Rodgers writes.
©2008
: 9:38 PM, January 03, 2009 Usually I don't publish comments on posts more than 2 months old, I try to stay current on comments with current -aka 60 days - worth of events. It's all about the time (only 24 hours in a day for each of us, that kind of thing). I also rarely publish Anony comments. Pat yourself on the back for getting past two rather firm comment policies that I have.
Okay, you "don't believe any of this stuff." So it doesn't sound like one way or the other you'd ever be convinced either way. So really, what is your point?
You say you're a Randolph descendant. Maybe you are, perhaps indeed. Surely then, considering your degree of skepticism you expressed, you will allow me to be skeptical of what anyone - including you - writes in a comment on the internet. I'm not saying you're lying about being a Randolph, but outside of your saying that there's no conclusive proof I can discern. You see, "just because someone writes something" that "lacks absolutely no documentation whatsoever" doesn't make it true.
There's more than just the reference to JPJ than the JohnnyCake Papers. Go out there and search for yourself. Be very afraid, though, of learning "stuff that you don't believe anyway."
So, what's your point?
Boy, I dunno about the Eisenhower ancestry. Sounds like you have far more knowledge in his ancestral history than I do.
The writers I link to in the piece seem to make a very good argument regarding Harding as a black president.
I agree we have quite the mixed national gene pool. No doubt about that.
Thanks for your comments, visiting and insight.
Oh, that's right, you're just a "drive-by" commenter/hatemonger. I don't expect to ever hear back from you and I knew that on Jan. 3.
Oh, I have no reason to question or doubt your research or what you read. It's that ANONYMOUS idiot commenter above who seems to be bereft of objectivity.
Going by the standard of "one drop" of "Black Blood" (whatever that is) would mean there's a huge part of the population that would technically and legally qualify as being Black.
You seem to have far more knowledge on this issue than I do. I'm no expert and I'm never afraid to say "I don't know" on subjects that I don't know. All I'm saying is that by the info on Harding I am familiar with it appears he was indeed Black. The First "Black" President, maybe not, but certainly Black.
Not that color makes a difference. I don't judge or draw conclusions on anyone based on color, race, creed, gender etc. Only if they're are raving moonbat liberals. ;-)
Thanks for your well-researched input.
<< Home
Alabama Internet
accordance and compliance with Fair Use Section 107 U.S. Copyright Code.
All other images and content © 2005-2009 David Drake.
Not responsible for content contained at linked sites.
Policy on commenting:
- Anonymous comments have little chance of being published.
- Comments made on posts 60 days old or older have little chance of being published.
- Published comments do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog author.
- Discretion of publishing or rejecting submitted comments rests solely with the owner and creator of this blog.
- Comments that egregiously "plug" (i.e. advertise or promote) another site or blog will be rejected. This doesn't mean you cannot include a link to your story, blog or to another site, but don't go overboard.
- Profanity is not a disqualifying factor, but profane rants solely for purposes of profanity are unlikely to be published.
- The owner and creator of this blog is not liable or responsible for the opinions of those who comment.
