Obama’s great-great-great-great-great-grandmother is front-page news

March 2, 2007

Earlier this week, the AP ran a 1,200-word story, for no apparent reason, about Mitt Romney’s great-grandfather and great-great grandfathers having multiple wives. It was a cheap and unnecessary shot.

On a related note, the Baltimore Sun and Chicago Tribune are reporting on Barack Obama’s ancestry in an inexplicable way.

Many people know that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas.

But an intriguing sliver of his family history has received almost no attention until now: it appears that forebears of his white mother owned slaves, according to genealogical research and Census records.

The records — which had never been addressed publicly by the Illinois senator or his relatives — were first noted in an ancestry report compiled by William Addams Reitwiesner, who works at the Library of Congress and practices genealogy in his spare time. The report, on Reitwiesner’s Web site, carries a disclaimer that it is a “first draft” — one likely to be examined more closely if Obama is nominated.

According to the research, one of Obama’s great-great-great-great grandfathers, George Washington Overall, owned two slaves who were recorded in the 1850 Census in Nelson County, Ky. The same records show that one of Obama’s great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers, Mary Duvall, also owned two slaves.

You’ve got to be kidding me. Obama’s great-great-great-great grandfather is relevant to his presidential campaign, why?

Keep in mind, the Baltimore Sun ran this on its front page. It’s not just some passing curiosity about Obama’s diverse background, it’s literally above-the-fold news.

Is this the kind of reporting we can expect for the next two years?

Bill Burton, a spokesperson for Obama’s campaign, had a reasonable response. “While a relative owned slaves, another fought for the Union in the Civil War,” Burton said. “And it is a true measure of progress that the descendant of a slave owner would come to marry a student from Kenya and produce a son who would grow up to be a candidate for president of the United States.”

That’s fair, but how about this response to the reporter’s inquiry: why do you care about Obama’s great-great-great-great grandfather?

Has any presidential campaign in history ever explored a candidate’s great-great-great-great grandfather seriously? As far as I can tell, probably not. There are usually too many real, substantive stories to cover in a presidential campaign.

I should add the same article also touches on Edwards and McCain.

Reitwiesner’s research identifies two other presidential candidates, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Democratic Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, as descendants of slave owners. Three of McCain’s great-great-grandfathers in Mississippi owned slaves, including one who owned 52 in 1860. Two ancestors of Edwards owned one slave each in Georgia in 1860.

If anyone can explain why any of this is relevant, I’m anxious to hear it.

Is this the kind of reporting we can expect for the next two years?

I was more or less expecting this level of journalism for the rest of my life.

  • Relevant?
    We don’t need no stinkin’ relevence!
    Slaves!
    Slave owners!
    Did they have SEX???
    Next:
    Lurid Daguerrotypes and silhouettes stay tuned!!!

    signed, Your Media, working for You!

  • I read this, and I recall the interview Al Sharpton had on The Daily Show last night. It’s our history, and in the grand scheme of things, it’s not ancient history. Everyone should be offended if this sort of thing turns into a character attack on the people in question (in this case, Obama), but to say it’s not noteworthy is a bit of a stretch.

  • Is this the kind of reporting we can expect for the next two years?
    Well, this is the sort of s*** that almost buried Gore in 99/00, so, basically, yes.

  • “Three of McCain’s great-great-grandfathers in Mississippi…”

    THAT’S it. I KNEW there was a reason this guy is such an ignorant twit.

  • Well, this is surely an example of just how far we have not come in regard to social, political and economic stigmas. Whether it is polygamy or slavery, we seem to have far too many reporters, (or merely individuals), who get a sense of titilation from such nonsense. In both the exampled news items above, the reporters merely seem to want to bitch slap the individuals in question. And we are held hostage to such cretin-focused efforts of gotcha journalism. -Kevo

  • According to my family’s oral history, during the Civil War the slaves owned by my great-great-grandfather smuggled them over Union lines to Kansas where the slaves all got jobs to support their former masters.

    Also according to my families oral history another great-great grandfather fought the Civil War in the Union army and happened to be a guard in the theater the night Lincoln was assasinated.

    So what? Down the timeline where I live it those things affect me in two ways: Every white American with ancestry that goes back before the Civil War has an ancestor who owned slaves — I know that my family’s past includes people who were capable of great evil and I have to watch for that in myself.

    It also tells me that my family’s past includes people who were willing to fight and die to keep the Union together and to free the slaves of the South — I know that my family’s past includes people who were capable of great sacrifice for others and I have to match that in my life.

    If it helps me to be a better person, then knowing about the history of my family is a good thing. But if the history of my family is held against me because of what my ancestors did …

  • “And George Bush’s grandfathers was Adolph Hitler’s Bankers.” – Comment by bcinaz

    My thoughts exactly. If we’re going to be exploring the genealogy of political figures by all means let’s discuss, Prescott Bush. If this is the level that we’re sinking to, then this could useful in keeping Jeb Bush out of the political world.

  • A “journalist” just determined that 600,000 years ago McCain’s ancestors were pre-hominids.

    Creationists went (dare we say?) ape.

  • What with this and Romney’s great-grandfather being a polygamist, we’re really digging all the way back, huh? Maybe Duncan Hunter’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather was involved in the Defenestration of Prague. Has anyone looked into this?

  • “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
    Dorothy, “The Wizard of Oz”

  • Taking a look at all the pertinent geneology through my wingnut-o-vision goggles, it appears that Obama is a geneological hypocrite for being partially black and having ancestors that also owned slaves. This qualifies him as “uppity” in the back community and should cost him votes. McCain will be a bigger hero in the South because his great-great gradpappy owned more slaves. And Edwards amounts to being a Southern ne’er do well because he only has two owned slaves in his past.

    George Washington should thank his lucky stars there was no internet around when he was getting elected as president ’cause I’m sure there was a monarchist or two in his ancestry.

  • As a dedicated family researcher, I can tell you that somebody who owned one or two slaves in those early years before the Civil War was certainly not rich. And I would argue those slaves were probably inherited or given to them by someone else in the family.

    I would also argue that the one or two slaves were probably treated much differently (probably better) than those slaves that were one of, say, 50.

    What relevance this had to a presidential election in 2007 is _______?

  • Of course we’ll see this level of journalism. It’s sensational and doesn’t deal with ugly realities.

  • Actually this is the type of reporting we have been getting for quite a few years, so why should we be surprised? That type of reporting is what keeps us all coming back here to this forum to get our news. MSM doesn’t get it.

  • Any moment now, I expect the media to ask Obama why his white half has not issued an apology to his black half…

  • “The twist is very interesting,” said Ronald Walters, a political scientist who is director of the African-American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland, College Park. “It deepens his connection with the experience of slavery, even if it deepens it on a different side of the equation.”

    Really? Aside from some people trapped in the sex trade against their will I’d be interested to find anyone in this country who as connection of any depth to experience of slavery. I live very close to UofM. Maybe I’ll drop by for a chat with Mr. Walters.

    I would challenge Walters, along with Nitkin and (No) Merritt the brain dead trogdolytes who wrote this dreck to find me five African-Americans who:
    1. Are descended from people who have been in the Americas for more than 200 years.
    2. Do not have European ancestry.
    3. Do not have an ancestor (of some sort) from Europe who owned slaves.

    If we turned the US definition of race around and said anyone with one European ancestor is Caucasian, you could fit all of the non-Caucasians in this country on a fucking Greyhound bus. Which could be used to run over Walters and the “reporters.”

    Is this the kind of reporting we can expect for the next two years?

    Let’s hope there are more people like Priest & Hull (Walter Reed stories) waiting in the wings to raise the bar so high crap like this won’t make it past the budget meeting. Seriously. This article is based on some casual research and because Obama loves his momma, the reporters try to make it sound like he loves slave owners. Disgusting.

  • If they’re going to start going back a century or more to dig up dirt, I get the feeling that every single candidate has a relative somewhere that did something untoward to some group of people.

    Of course, the first person who can tell me what the holy hell a relative from seven generations ago has to do with next year’s election gets a dollar.

    One other thing: As much as we want to blast the reporter for writing the story (and rightfully so) let’s not forget the editor(s) who okayed the story and then put it on the front page. That twit/those twits deserve a smack upside the head.

  • can we expect this type of reporting for the next 2 years? As long as we continue to start electoral campaigns 2 years before the actual election then the answer is Yes.

  • 1. It’s not worth researching or reporting in the first place.

    2. It’s not worth the blogspace it takes to report that it was reported upon.

    3. It’s not worth the time or effort it took for over 20 people to comment on this worthless crap.

    4. I’m the biggest fool of all . . .

  • Any moment now, I expect the media to ask Obama why his white half has not issued an apology to his black half…

    And whether or not his white half has paid, or offered to pay, reparations to his black half.

  • More soft-fingered psychosis from the bought-and-paid-for media. The researcher isn’t even saying the current candidates actually did anything *wrong* but the invisible dagger of insinuation makes the more porous-minded members of the public all twitchy with unconcious dread.

    I tell you, the collective insanity quotient of this society is getting larger by the day. That’s what makes this garbage work, and why it never seems to go away.

    If only people would just wake up!

  • Overall, it has no great significance and is certainly not front page.
    But it at least it looked at multiple candidates and also looked at both parties. In that sense, it is better reporting that a lot of recent work.

  • Is it just me, or has the media just lost it’s fucking mind?

    Some guy on a blog somewhere puts out a “first draft” of something, and it’s front page news?

    There’s no other news more important than that today?

    Jesus… they suck so hard they’re going to implode.

    Stand back.

  • The ancestry of any aspiring politicians have absolutely no relevance to the qualifications or disqualifications of those politicians for the positions they aspire to. Only their own actions–or lack thereof–that would be of benefit or importance to their prospective constitutents are of relevance.

  • Goodness gracious me, how exciting! I ran to my husband with the news but he was unmoved. “Family or not,” he said “he’s not my first choice. I’ll vote for him if he gets the nomination but he’s not seeing a penny of mine before then”. But I imagine there’ll be quite a few, also far-related, people in the Baltimore area whose heads will explode at the idea of being related to Obama (the black half).

    Oh and… I know we’re not supposed to make any comparisons to Hitler, but this one is inescapable: even Hitler only dug for 5 generations searching for Jews to exterminate…

  • Perhaps his white ancestor had sex with one of the black slaves and has black/white children? There would be a double whammy then, race and sex!!!! Nooooooooooo, not SEX!!!

    All of this is a means of trying to neuter Obama. The question of whether he is too white for blacks or too black for whites is being approached here by a different tack. If it’s too confusing, maybe no one who has race issues will vote for him, white or black.

    By the way, throwing in the other candidates was for cover…

  • wow, how low can they go.

    and i am left wondering, what can be done to let the media know that this is not only irrelevant, but really is not journalism. I am challenging each one of you who thinks this is a moronic thing to print, to go and challenge those printing it. In times like this, we as citizens must not only be vigilant, but we also must be active. Lets show them that this is not acceptable. We are better than this!

  • It can be valuable to know one’s genealogy. It can instill humility regarding who we are and what our ancestors experienced. Obama has shown great maturity in his own interpretation of his background and awareness of his connection to a great variety of people and our history. I would be interested in how any candidate views his/her family history, but only as an indication of the maturity of their outlook and their insight if they choose to volunteer the information. That is not what this newspaper had in mind, I’m sure.

  • It is not surprising to learn Obama has slave owners hin his family tree. Virtually all Americans, regardless of their race or ethnicity, have ancestors who owned slaves. Many African Americans who researched their family trees would be shocked to discover that have black as well as white ancestors who were slave owners. In the United States, free blacks as well as whites owned slaves (one of the South’s biggest slave owner was a freed black man notorious for his harsh treatment of his slaves). The percentage of free blacks who owned slaves was small, as was the percentages of whites who owned slaves, but the intricacies of the genetic pool guarantee that virtually everyone is related to them. African Americans who traced their heritage back to Africa would discover that virtually all their African ancestors were involved in the slave traded. The African tribes ran the “supply side” of the Atlantic slave trade. The ancestors of Hispanic Americans owned both black and Indian slaves. American Indian tribes practiced slavery both before and after the European discovery of America. The Cherokee Nation, for example, voted yesterday (3 March 07) to revoke the tribal citizenship of about 2,800 descendants of Cherokee slaves.

  • Interesting, but I don’t think that it has any bearing on the election. Who cares if Obama’s great-great-great-great grandfather owned slaves. What year was that? And now we are in 2008. This is a real stretch if we are going to base or decision on who should be our next president by what his or her ancestor. I’m sure that somehow Barack Obama’s sage and wise OLD (and should I mention looong dead) great-great-great-great grandfather has told Obama many stories about owning the slaves and how they were pieces of garbage. Come on people

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