March 02, 2007
Obama Ancestors Owned Slavesby Matt Margolis at 04:22 PM
I wonder if this news is "shocking" to Al Sharpton.
Many people know that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas.Though something tells me Sharpton is more horrified of his connection to a Republican rather than a former segregationist whose ancestors owned slaves.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.
Comments
It is not news that a white family's ancestors owned slaves - that is the unfortunate history of most white americans.
It was shocking to Al Sharpton that Strom Thurmond owned Al Sharpton's grandfather's father. We usually never think of slavery as affecting us in such an immediate way. The fact that Strom Thurmond's family sold Sharpton's family is the sole reason the Sharpton family moved from SC to FL so that's the shocking part...
Posted by: sweet j ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.gopbloggers.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 4, 2007 06:23 PM
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