But will he be the first black president?
Reports, rumors, gossip has maintained the presence of at least one semi-black president since the 1920s when Warren Harding was president. During his campaign, a man by the name of William Estabrook Chancellor published a book proclaiming that Harding was the great-grandson of a slave girl. Shortly after its publication, Chancellor was run out of the country and settled in Canada, but the rumors circulated. Perhaps it was Harding's rank that caused mouths to move, or as some historians suggest, perhaps it was because rumors had already existed long before Chancellor's book.
One of Harding's ancestors killed a man for suggesting that his wife, a Harding, was black. Another that Harding's father's second wife divorced him because "he was too much Negro 'for her to handle'" (from an article by Beverly Gage, professor of Modern U.S. History at Yale University, published in the New York Times April 6, 2008). And another that Harding's own father-in-law, a wealthy businessman who was allegedly jealous of Harding's newspaper business, disowned his daughter for "polluting" the family tree when she married the would-be-president in 1891.
But Harding isn't the only pre-prez to fall under the One Drop Law scrutiny. Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower, Calvin Coolidge, and Abraham Lincoln are among his possibly-somewhat-black peers.
Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and if his parentage included African American descent, he did not know it. His book, "Notes on the State of Virginia," provides a clear insight into his perception of slavery. It is obvious that Jefferson was not a cruel master, for he spent much of his time studying them, finding differences between his own race and theirs. For instance, he says: "Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous." (He also said "In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time," which I found funny because it's true.) Though Jefferson took one of his slaves as a lover and she bore him several children, it is still made obvious that Jefferson believed slaves to be beneath him.
When he wrote the Declaration of Independence, slaves were not included in the phrase "all men are created equal." For centuries this belief hung around until it became in integral part of the civil war.
Lincoln, for all of the rumors about his mother having a slave lover, was not an abolitionist. He did not want to be associated with abolitionists. Lincoln freed the slaves for two reasons: 1.) because it was immoral to own human beings, and 2.) because by giving them what they wanted, there was a higher chance they would fight for the North.
The Civil War was not focused around owning slaves. The topic of slavery's morality was brought into play long before Lexington and Concord, and as commander in chief, freeing the slaves was a tactical, practical, and historical move for Lincoln. It is what he is most remembered for, which probably didn't even cross his mind at the time.
Any of these presidents would have denied African-American heritage, and probably vehemently. To be black, to have "One Drop" of African-American blood would have not only ruined their careers, but probably their lives as well.
When it comes to racism the world is foolish.
But suppose all of these presidents actually had African-American ancestors. Today we can feel confident saying "So what?"
And that's the point. Whether or not a previous president has the blood isn't the point; the fact that America is ready to accept one is.
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