According to a Reuters analysis, with the exception of Donald Trump, all living US presidents had at least one ancestor who owned slaves.
The genealogies of “America’s political elite” were revealed by Reuters on Tuesday, and it was discovered that President Joe Biden and all of his living predecessors are derived from people who owned Black people as slaves.
Even Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, is descended from a slaveowner via his white mother’s branch of the family.
According to Reuters, the following presidents had ancestors who owned slaves:
George Bush: Six generations back, one director ancestor held 25 slaves.
Bill Clinton: Five generations back, one director ancestor had one slave.
Jimmy Carter: Four generations back, one director ancestor had 54 slaves.
Barack Obama: Six generations back, one director ancestor held two slaves.
Joe Biden: Five generations back, one direct ancestor held a slave.
There are also senators and justices on the list.
In addition, 100 members of Congress, 11 governors, and two justices of the Supreme Court are direct descendants of slaveowners.
At least 28% of Republicans and 8% of Democrats in Congress can trace their ancestry to slaveholders.
Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Lindsey Graham, as well as Democrats such as Tammy Duckworth and Elizabeth Warren, are among them.
“The preponderance of Republicans reflects the party’s strength in the South, where slavery was concentrated. Although white people enslaved Black people in northern states in early America, by the eve of the Civil War, slavery was almost entirely a southern enterprise,” the Reuters report stated.
According to a Reuters article, Trump’s ancestors did not arrive in the United States until after the abolition of slavery in 1865, whereas the ancestors of all other American presidents have deep roots in the country.
More on this story via The Republic Brief:
An interesting fact is that none of Trump’s grandparents were born in the US. His paternal grandparents immigrated to the US in the early 1900s; they were from the little German town of Kallstadt. According to Business Insider, his mother, Mary, was born in Scotland. CONTINUE READING…
