An interesting history…
Which other presidents hid their African ancestry? Well, it's not Bill Clinton, even though the Congressional Black Caucus honored him as the nation's "first Black president" at its 2001 annual awards dinner. Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge all had Black ancestors they kept in their genealogical closets, according to historians.Harding did not deny his African ancestry when Republican leaders called on him to deny his "Negro" history. He said, "How should I know whether or not one of my ancestors might have jumped the fence?"The first president with African ancestry was Jefferson, who served two terms between 1801 and 1809. Jefferson was described as the "son of a half-breed Indian squaw and a Virginia mulatto father," as stated in Vaughn's findings. Jefferson also was said to have destroyed all documentation attached to his mother, even going to extremes to seize letters written by his mother to other people.Lincoln, the nation's 16th president, served between 1861 and 1865. Lincoln was said to have been the illegitimate son of an African man, according to Vaughn's findings. Lincoln had very dark skin and coarse hair and his mother allegedly came from an Ethiopian tribe. His heritage fueled so much controversy that Lincoln was nicknamed "Abraham Africanus the First" by his opponents.
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