[This story was published February 19, 2015]
Although Barak Obama’s 2008 selection to the Oval Office propagandized many to believe he is this country’s first Black commander-in-chief, records reveal that at least six previous U.S. presidents are of African ancestry.
During the African holocaust, many indigenous people’s DNA was diluted by the bloodlines of the colonizers. In the era of the “one-drop” rule, some people with as much as one-fourth African descent could still legally be classified as Caucasian and be more socially accepted. Eventually this ratio was reduced to one-eighth, and then less.
Historian J.A. Rogers’ pamphlet, “The 5 Black Presidents,” explains that the third president’s (1801-1809), Thomas Jefferson’s, mother, Jane Randolph-Jefferson, was “a half-breed Indian Squaw” and his father, Peter Jefferson, a “Virginia mulatto.”
Andrew Jackson, the nation’s seventh president (1829-1837), “was the son of a [Caucasian] woman [Elizabeth] from Ireland who had intermarried with a [Black man],” reveals Rogers. Adding that Jackson’s eldest brother “had been sold into slavery in North Carolina.”
The 16th president, Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865), “had very dark skin and coarse hair, and his mother [Nancy Hanks] came from an Ethiopian tribe, and his father was an African-American,” alleges author, Dr. Leroy Vaughn, in his 2001 book, ‘Black People and Their Place in History.’ “His heritage fueled so much controversy that Lincoln was nicknamed ‘Abraham Africanus the First,’ and cartoons were drawn depicting him as an African.”
When challenged by political opponents about his genealogy, Warren Harding, the 29th president (1921-23) replied, “How should I know whether or not one of my ancestors might have jumped the fence?”
According to Rogers, “Harding had Black ancestors between both sets of parents. He had a mulatto father [George] and a Black great-grandmother; and got his only academic degree from Iberia College,” which was “founded to educate fugitive slaves.”
Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president (1923-1929), proudly admitted that “his mother, Victoria Moor, was dark because of mixed Indian ancestry,” says Vaughn. “They said she had fair complexion with a ‘rich growth’ of brown hair.”
About the 34th president (1953-1961), Dwight Eisenhower, “The rumor was his dad was mixed, coming out of Africa, but his mother, Ida Elizabeth Stover-Eisenhower, was mulatto,” indicated Vaughn. “He was the first President to elevate an African-American to an executive position in the White House.”
The myth
During this nation’s imperialistic infancy, John Hanson was president of the Continental Congress (1781-82), this country’s first government, which resulted out of the American Revolution. This government was before the United States Constitution being drawn up, therefore excluding him as the first U.S. president.
Although the Maryland native was Caucasian, he is often confused with Senator John Hanson, a Black man, who assisted the American Colonization Society relocate Americanized-Africans to Liberia nearly four decades later.
The rumor suggested that the Black President Hanson appears on the back of the two-dollar bill, when actually the shadowy face in the portrait reproduced on the currency is that of a Caucasian named Thomas Heyward Jr.