Claims that certain U.S. presidents other than Barack Obama had African or African-American ancestry have been made by professional historian
J. A. Rogers,
ophthalmologist Leroy William Vaughn, and psychologist Auset BaKhufu. All base their theories chiefly on the work of J. A. Rogers, who apparently self-published a pamphlet in 1965 claiming that five presidents of the United States, widely accepted as white, also had African ancestry. Historian
Henry Louis Gates has written that Rogers's pamphlet "would get the 'Black History Wishful Thinking Prize,' hands down". Vaughn's and BaKhufu's books were also self-published. Historians' and biographers' studies of these presidents have not supported such claims, and they lack empirical evidence. These authors are generally ignored by scholars. They have been classified as "rumormongers and amateur historians" as well as
conspiracy theorists. Vaughn and BaKhufu have added little substantive research to their claims, but there have been more rumors of the potential African heritage of other presidents in the decades since Rogers published his pamphlet.
Thomas Jefferson Vaughn and others claim that
Thomas Jefferson's mother
Jane Randolph Jefferson was of mixed-race ancestry. The academic consensus does not support such claims. For example, in her recent analyses of historical evidence about the Hemings and Jeffersons, scholar
Annette Gordon-Reed makes no claim of African descent in the Randolph family. Specifically, Vaughn says, "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." An overlapping claim is that, in an 18th-century presidential campaign, someone speaking against Jefferson's candidacy and in favor of that of
John Adams accused Jefferson of being "half Injun, half nigger, half Frenchman" and born to a "mulatto father" or slave and "a half-breed Indian squaw", but otherwise unproven. These claims are based on damning stories from Jefferson's political opponents and are best understood as
race-baiting rather than evidence about his actual lineage. They describe the quote in
The Johnny Cake Papers as one frequently repeated, but it is attributed in written sources to the 1800 rather than the 1796 election campaign and clearly is one made by political opponents.
The Johnny Cake Papers were a collection of folk tales published in 1879, not 1867, and only one tale commented on Jefferson.
Dixon Wecter, in his essay "Thomas Jefferson, The Gentle Radical," discusses various portrayals of Jefferson by his political enemies and mentions that "the Jonnycake Papers later burlesqued such caricatures..."
Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson referred to an accusation that his "Mother ... [was] held to public scorn as a prostitute who intermarried with a Negro, and [that his] ... eldest brother [was] sold as a slave in Carolina." Less specific was a rumor of Jackson having "colored blood", meaning having "Negro" ancestry; this rumor was unproven. Jackson's father was born in
Carrickfergus,
County Antrim, in current-day
Northern Ireland, around 1738. Hendrik Booraem,
Robert Remini, and
H. W. Brands have agreed that he had no black ancestors.
Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln's mother
Nancy Hanks was claimed to be of
Somali descent, but has been proven to be white. According to
Doug Wead, Enloe made a public boast that he was Lincoln's real father, and
Thomas Lincoln allegedly fought him, biting off a piece of his nose. Another claim was that Lincoln was "part Negro", but that was unproven. According to Lincoln's law partner
William H. Herndon, Lincoln had "very dark skin", although "his cheeks were leathery and saffron-colored", "his face was ... sallow," Around 1838–39, Abraham Lincoln described himself as a "long black fellow", and his "complexion" in 1859 as "dark", but whether he meant either in an ancestral sense is unknown. The anti-Lincoln
Charleston Mercury described him as being "of ... the dirtiest complexion", as part of anti-abolitionist race-baiting. Chancellor publicized rumors, based on supposed family research but perhaps reflecting no more than local gossip. In an era when the "
one-drop rule" would classify a person with any African ancestry as black, and black people in
the South had been effectively
disenfranchised, Harding's campaign manager responded, "no family in the state (of Ohio) has a clearer, a more honorable record than the Hardings', a blue-eyed stock from New England and Pennsylvania, the finest pioneer blood." "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." The college was founded by abolitionist supporters in the
Presbyterian Church in
Ohio for students of both sexes and all races. The rumors may have been sustained by a statement Harding allegedly made to newspaperman
James W. Faulkner on the subject, which he perhaps meant to be dismissive: "How do I know, Jim? One of my ancestors may have jumped the fence." However, while there are gaps in the historical record, studies of his family tree have not found evidence of an African-American ancestor.
Genetic testing of Harding's descendants in 2015 determined, with more than a 95% percent chance of accuracy, that he lacked sub-Saharan African forebears within four previous generations.
Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge's mother Victoria Moor was claimed to be of a mixed-race family in
Vermont.
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight D. Eisenhower's mother was said to be of mixed blood from Africa and Europe. ==See also ==