'Black Presidents': 6 United States Commanders In Chief Before Obama

Barack Obama is widely known as the United States' first black president. But is he really the country's first African-American commander-in-chief? Rumor has it there are six other former presidents who had African-American ancestry.

Thomas Jefferson

In his 19-page pamphlet 'The Five Negro Presidents,' Joel A. Rogers wrote that the country's third president was described by a political opponent as the "son of a half-breed Indian squaw and a Virginia mulatto father."

It is no secret that Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemmings from his Monticello residence. However, any evidence of African ancestry remains unconfirmed.

Andrew Jackson

In his 2001 book, 'Black People And Their Place in History,' Dr. Leroy Vaughn cites an article written in the Virginia Magazine of History that the country's seventh president was the son of an Irish woman who married a black man. The magazine also stated that Jackson's oldest brother had been sold as a slave.

This assertion remains unconfirmed.

Abraham Lincoln

The country's 16th president is widely known as "The Great Emancipator," but in his book, Rogers wrote that Lincoln was in fact the illegitimate son of an African man, and that his mother was said to have admitted that he was the progeny of a black man.

This assertion has yet to be confirmed.

Warren Harding

The country's 29th president, never denied his black heritage. According to Rogers, "Harding had black ancestors between both sets of parents. 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."

Calvin Coolidge

In his book, Dr. Vaughn claimed that the nation's 30th president also had black ancestry, writing Coolidge "claimed his mother was dark because of mixed Indian ancestry. Coolidge's mother's maiden name was ‘Moor’, in Europe the name was given to all blacks. Dr. Auset Bakhufu says that by 1800 the New England Indian was hardly any longer pure Indian, because they had mixed so often with Blacks."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dr. Auset Bakhufu includes the 34th president in his book 'Six Black Presidents: Black Blood : White Masks USA,' saying Eisenhower's mother, Ida Elizabeth Stover Eisenhower, an anti-war advocate, was part black.