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HARDING - AMERICA'S FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT

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Bianca
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« on: June 07, 2008, 09:04:25 pm »



Warren G. Harding

Library of Congress Prints
and Photographs Division











                                          HARDING - AMERICA'S FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT


 



By BEVERLY GAGE
The New York Times
Published: April 6, 2008

Will Americans vote for a black president?

If the notorious historian William Estabrook Chancellor was right, we already did.

In the early 1920s, Chancellor helped assemble a controversial biographical portrait accusing President Warren Harding of covering up his family’s “colored” past. According to the family tree Chancellor created, Harding was actually the great-grandson of a black woman. Under the one-drop rule of American race relations, Chancellor claimed, the country had inadvertently elected its “first Negro president.”

In today’s presidential landscape, many Americans view the prospect of a black man in the Oval Office as
a sign of progress — evidence of a “postracial” national consciousness. In the white-supremacist heyday of the 1920s (the Ku Klux Klan had a major revival during the Harding years), the taint of “Negro blood” was political death. The Harding forces hit back hard against Chancellor, driving him out of his job and destroying all but a handful of published copies of his book.

In the decades since, many biographers have dismissed the rumors of Harding’s mixed-race family as little more than a political scandal and Chancellor himself as a Democratic mudslinger and racist ideologue. But as with the long-denied and now all-but-proved allegations of Thomas Jefferson’s affair with his slave Sally Hemings, there is reason to question the denials. From the perspective of 2008, when interracial sex is seen as a historical fact of life instead of an abomination, the circumstantial case for Harding’s mixed-race ancestry is intriguing though not definitive.

To anyone who tracks it down today, Chancellor’s book comes across as a laughable partisan screed, an amalgam of bizarre racial theories, outlandish stereotypes and cheap political insults. But it also contains a remarkable trove of social knowledge — the kind of community gossip and oral tradition that rarely appears in official records but often provides clues to richer truths. When he toured Ohio in 1920, Chancellor claimed to find dozens of acquaintances and neighbors willing to swear that the Hardings had been considered black for generations. Among the persuaded, according to rumor, was Harding’s father-in-law, Amos Kling, one of the richest men in Harding’s adopted hometown of Marion. When Harding married his daughter, Florence, in 1891, Kling supposedly denounced her for polluting the family line.

There were rumors of other family scandals as well: the 1849 case in which “one David Butler killed Amos Smith” after Smith claimed that Butler’s wife, a Harding, was black; the suggestion that Harding’s father’s second wife divorced him because he was too much Negro “for her to endure.” In Chancellor’s book, such stories are relayed with a bitter, racist glee — ample reason not to accept them out of hand. But if none of this had any resemblance to the truth, how did all of these rumors get started?

In 1968, the Harding biographer Francis Russell offered an explanation: Harding’s great-great-grandfather Amos told his descendants that he once caught a man killing his neighbor’s apple trees and that the man started the rumor in retaliation — a rather weak story that Russell declined to endorse and that did not silence the mixed-blood rumors.

Well into the 1930s, African-Americans claiming a family link continued to pop up in the press. (One decidedly dark-skinned Oliver Harding, supposedly the president’s great-uncle, appeared in Abbott’s Monthly, a black-owned Chicago magazine, in 1932.) As recently as 2005, a Michigan schoolteacher named Marsha Stewart issued her own claim to Harding ancestry. “While growing up,” she wrote, “we were never allowed to talk about the relationship to a U.S. president outside family gatherings because we were ‘colored’ and Warren was ‘passing.’ ”

Genetic testing and genealogical research may one day prove the truth or falsity of such claims. In the meantime, as the campaign season plunges us headlong into a “national conversation” about race, it’s worth thinking about why that truth has been so hard to come by for so long — about what makes it into our official history and what we choose to excise along the way.

Harding’s hometown, Marion, Ohio, provides a case in point. The town gained national fame in 1920 as the site of Harding’s “front-porch campaign”; for weeks, he delivered stump speeches from his well-tended home. Far less well known, as the historian Phillip Payne has noted, is what happened the year before, when a mob of armed white Marion residents drove more than 200 black families out of town, one of a wave of postwar race riots that served to segregate the industrialized north.



Beverly Gage teaches modern U.S. history at Yale University.

« Last Edit: June 07, 2008, 09:15:51 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

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Bianca
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« Reply #1 on: June 07, 2008, 09:21:28 pm »



Joe Doe Norman and his wife,
Mary Harding-Norman,
who is the first cousin of the
29th president Warren G. Harding,
according to Marsha Stewart








                                          Black woman details ties to Warren G. Harding





Tuesday,
February 05, 2008
By Monica Haynes,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

While others may view the stories about Warren G. Harding's black ancestry as rumor, Marsha Stewart sees
it as fact.

Mrs. Stewart, a 60-year-old black woman who teaches at a high school in suburban Detroit, is a fifth cousin to the 29th president, according to her family history.

"When I grew up in the '50s, my grandparents said it's OK to talk about it in the family setting but it's not
OK to talk about it outside of the family settings," Mrs. Stewart said.

Her 2005 book, "Warren Harding U.S. President 29: Death By Blackness," details her family connection to Harding.

"He was my great-grandmother's first cousin," Mrs. Stewart said. Adding that her great-grandmother, Mary Harding Norman, and Warren Harding's father, George Tryon Harding, were first cousins.

She traces their common ancestors back to the black settlers of Isabella, Montcalm and Mecosta counties in central Michigan. Warren Harding's immediate family remained in Ohio, but other branches moved to Michigan, according to Mrs. Stewart, who said those are the Hardings from whom she is descended.

"My mother talks about Warren Harding coming to a cousin's funeral in Michigan," Mrs. Stewart said. "When he drove in everybody sort of knew who he was. He attended the funeral, and he left."

She said she has been contacted by Warren Harding's grandchildren and great-grandchildren several times. "They tell me they've heard rumors that they have black blood."

While Warren Harding never really denied he may have had black ancestors, he never declared himself black.

When asked why she believes her cousin never did so, Mrs. Stewart said, "Because we live in America.

To be a true American, [you can't be] black even though we've been here for centuries.

That's just the truth."
« Last Edit: June 07, 2008, 09:27:21 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

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Bianca
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« Reply #2 on: June 07, 2008, 09:40:11 pm »








The Five Black Presidents of
The United States Of America


 
 
 
          Thomas Jefferson - Andrew Jackson - Abraham Lincoln - Warren Harding - Calvin Coolidge
 

 
                                                      W H O   I S   N E X T ?
 


   

Joel A. Rogers and Dr. Auset Bakhufu have both written books documenting that at least five former presidents of the United States had Black people among their ancestors.

If one considers the fact that European men far outnumbered European women during the founding of this country, and that the **** and impregnation of an African female slave was not considered a crime, it is even more surprising that these two authors could not document Black ancestors among an ever larger number of former presidents.

The president’s names include Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge.

The best case for Black ancestry is against Warren G. Harding, our 29th president from 1921 until 1923.

 Harding himself never denied his ancestry. When Republican leaders called on Harding to deny the "Negro" history, he said, "How should I know whether or not one of my ancestors might have jumped the fence."

William Chancellor, a White professor of economics and politics at Wooster College in Ohio, wrote a
book on the Harding family genealogy and identified Black ancestors among both parents of President Harding. Justice Department agents allegedly bought and destroyed all copies of this book. Chancellor also said that Harding's only academic credentials included education at Iberia College, which was founded in order to educate fugitive slaves.

Andrew Jackson was our 7th president from 1829 to 1837. The Virginia Magazine of History Volume 29 says that Jackson was the son of a White woman from Ireland who had intermarried with a Negro. The magazine also said that his eldest brother had been sold as a slave in Carolina. Joel Rogers says that Andrew Jackson Sr. died long before President Andrew Jackson Jr. was born. He says the president's mother then went to live on the Crawford farm where there were Negro slaves and that one of these men was Andrew Jr's father. Another account of the "brother sold into slavery” story can be found in David Coyle's book entitled "Ordeal of the Presidency" (1960).

Thomas Jefferson was our 3rd president from 1801 to 1809. The chief attack on Jefferson was in a book written by Thomas Hazard in 1867 called "The Johnny Cake Papers." Hazard interviewed Paris Gardiner, who said he was present during the 1796 presidential campaign, when one speaker states that Thomas Jefferson was “a mean-spirited son of a half-breed Indian squaw and a Virginia mulatto father.” In his book entitled "The Slave Children of Thomas Jefferson," 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 every person who had ever received a letter from his mother, asking them to return that letter. Sloan says, "There is something strange and even psychopathic about the lengths to which Thomas Jefferson went to destroy all remembrances of his mother, while saving over 18,000 copies of his own letters and other documents for posterity." One must ask, "What is it he was trying to hide?"

Abraham Lincoln was our 16th president from 1861 to 1865. J. A. Rogers quotes Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, as saying that Abraham Lincoln was the illegitimate son of an African man. William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, said that Lincoln had very dark skin and coarse hair and that his mother was from an Ethiopian tribe. In Herndon's book entitled "The Hidden Lincoln" he says that Thomas Lincoln could not have been Abraham Lincoln's father because he was sterile from childhood mumps and was later castrated. Lincoln's presidential opponents made cartoon drawings depicting him as a Negro and nicknamed him “Abraham Africanus the First."

Calvin Coolidge was our 30th president, and he succeeded Warren Harding. He proudly admitted that his mother was dark because of mixed Indian ancestry. However, Dr. Bakhufu says that by 1800 the New England Indian was hardly any longer pure Indian, because they had mixed so often with Blacks. Calvin Coolidge's mother's maiden name was "Moor." In Europe the name "Moor" was given to all Black people just as the name Negro was used in America.

All of the presidents mentioned were able to pass for White and never acknowledged their Black ancestry.

Millions of other children who were descendants of former slaves have also been able to pass for White. American society has had so much interracial mixing that books such as “The Bell Curve”, discussing IQ evaluations based solely on race, are totally unrealistic.



http://www.computerhealth.org/ebook/5blkpres.htm
« Last Edit: June 07, 2008, 09:42:16 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

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Bianca
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« Reply #3 on: June 10, 2008, 09:36:24 am »











                                                     Is Barack Obama black or biracial?





Americans were first allowed to identify as "multiracial" in the 2000 Census

Barack Obama is touted as the nation's first major party black candidate for president

Obama identifies himself as black, but his parentage is biracial




 
By Jason Carroll
CNN's
American Morning
     
Editor's note: In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents share their experiences in covering news and analyze the stories behind the events. CNN's Jason Carroll explores the issue of race.



Barack Obama's father was from Kenya; his white mother was from Kansas.

 (CNN) -- The 2000 U.S. Census was the first time Americans were allowed to identify themselves as "multiracial," and more than six million people checked more than one box in the race and ethnicity category.

Included in the multiracial category is the Democratic presumptive nominee, Sen. Barack Obama. With
a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya, Obama is the nation's first biracial candidate for president. The media, however, have continually called Obama the nation's first major party "black candidate," saying he could make history as the first "black president." But is that accurate?

A columnist examining Obama's background summed up his racial identity into one equation: white + black = black.

For me, that said it all.

There are some who point out Obama is just as white as he is black. He may be the nation's first black president, but he would also be the nation's 44th white president.  Is Obama black or biracial? »

"He can't say, 'I'm a white guy named Barack Hussein Obama,' nobody's going to buy that," says cultural critic Michaela Angela Davis. "We're not ready for that."

This is an issue that has sparked debate not only in our newsroom, but also among my friends and family. Most Americans see Obama as a black man, and he identifies himself as a black man. But there are some who will argue that by labeling Obama as a "black candidate," we are all ignoring a vital and legitimate side of his life.  Does Obama's race really matter? »

I spoke with a group of young professionals who are part of a biracial support group called Swirl. Swirl was started by a woman named Jen Chau whose father is Chinese and mother is white. Chau says this debate over Obama's racial identity is very familiar and she's been dealing with this issue her whole life.

Chau identifies herself as a mixed-race person as do the other members of Swirl we spoke with. Lynda Turet says she could never identify herself as a white person in America because she is also half-Filipina. Both women support Obama's choice to identify himself as a black candidate, but they also understand why he emphasizes his white roots.


David Mendell, author of "Obama: From Promise to Power" says there's an idea of a "post-racial" candidate, a candidate who transcends the labels of race to appeal to all races. He says though most Americans view Obama as black, he has been able to use his own experiences to appeal to both black and white audiences and that has translated into political success.

This is a debate that will continue as we watch the presidential race. It seems with an issue like this there's no right or wrong answer. As Michaela Angela Davis says, it's a step in the right direction that we are even having this discussion as all.



CNN's Susan Chun contributed to this report.
« Last Edit: June 10, 2008, 09:43:51 am by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

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Monique Faulkner
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« Reply #4 on: June 10, 2008, 10:50:49 am »

He's bi-racial, but was raised with an understanding of both black and white people, cause he has both white and black relatives.  We need a President like that, someone who understands all cultures so we don't have that "us against them" mentality, which has always dragged America down.
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Volitzer
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« Reply #5 on: June 11, 2008, 08:23:01 am »

He's bi-racial, but was raised with an understanding of both black and white people, cause he has both white and black relatives.  We need a President like that, someone who understands all cultures so we don't have that "us against them" mentality, which has always dragged America down.

Right this Bilderberg pawn will be so much different than Bush and Clinton.   Roll Eyes
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