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Wow- So all this hub bub about Obama breaking new racial ground is not such a big deal after all. This is actually a wonderful revelation...similar to the great 1800s Russian poet...Pushkin...Who is the most celebrated Russian writer...and he was black...funny - most Russians really don't like black people....Yet they embrace the mind and spirit of a great poet who was the soul of old Russia. I doubt very much that the President mentioned in this thread was "killed" - Why bother with such a conspiracy theory?...The fact that he was black is enough and should be celebrated.
Wow- So all this hub bub about Obama breaking new racial ground is not such a big deal after all. This is actually a wonderful revelation...similar to the great 1800s Russian poet...Pushkin...Who is the most celebrated Russian writer...and he was black...funny - most Russians really don't like black people....Yet they embrace the mind and spirit of a great poet who was the soul of old Russia. I doubt very much that the President mentioned in this thread was "killed" - Why bother with such a conspiracy theory?...The fact that he was black is enough and should be celebrated.
Wow- So all this hub bub about Obama breaking new racial ground is not such a big deal after all. This is actually a wonderful revelation...similar to the great 1800s Russian poet...Pushkin...Who is the most celebrated Russian writer...and he was black...funny - most Russians really don't like black people....Yet they embrace the mind and spirit of a great poet who was the soul of old Russia. I doubt very much that the President mentioned in this thread was "killed" - Why bother with such a conspiracy theory?...The fact that he was black is enough and should be celebrated.
This thread was originally posted to the P&OC forum, but a forum moderator moved to the History forum.
Please note that the OP makes a contention that is not only not supported by the provided link, but part of the premise of the OP is based upon a rumor started by the opposition in the 1920 presidential campaign.
Wow- So all this hub bub about Obama breaking new racial ground is not such a big deal after all. This is actually a wonderful revelation...similar to the great 1800s Russian poet...Pushkin...Who is the most celebrated Russian writer...and he was black...funny - most Russians really don't like black people....Yet they embrace the mind and spirit of a great poet who was the soul of old Russia. I doubt very much that the President mentioned in this thread was "killed" - Why bother with such a conspiracy theory?...The fact that he was black is enough and should be celebrated.
Pushkin was part black, his great-grandfather was black.
Regarding phenotype, he did not stand out anymore than the numerous other ethnicities that were part of the Russian Empire.
Warren G. Harding may or may not have had black ancestry--it was a claim made entirely by highly controversial political opponents, which gives it a big dose of discredit from the start. Harding had known heart problems and an enlarged heart, and it's most likely that he died of a heart attack. His wife refused an autopsy, which fed conspiracy theories. Heart disease was poorly understood at that time, leading to much of the confusion. Most historians do not believe he had black ancestry.
He's not the first president to face those claims from political opponents out to make ugly attacks. The same claims were made about Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Calvin Coolidge, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. We look at the issue now as merely interesting, but in a racially segregated society, it was an ugly rumor to start. African-American heritage of United States presidents - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That said, African American heritage is still a real possibility for many of us with long and deep roots in this country. I'm an avid genealogist, and I've spent a great deal of time trying to untangle my own family, that, with the exception of one gg-grandparent who immigrated here in the 1840s, were all here long before the American Revolution, and most were early settlers in frontier areas. When you start to research lines that moved into the south eastern states very early, or were very early settlers in places like Tennessee or Kentucky, the lineage can get very murky, because women and children weren't named in early census documents, and people who weren't wealthy often died without wills, or church and court records were destroyed during the revolutionary war or civil war. It's pretty common to hit a "brick wall," especially on maternal lines.
I'm far from an expert on the issue, but I know from my own research that in frontier areas of the southeast there was intermarriage with Native Americans (mainly Cherokee), and in some cases those individuals were multi-racial (black, native american mix). Prior to 1652 in Virginia (and the rise of massive numbers of slaves transported from Africa), the social and citizenship status of children was determined by the father, meaning that children sired by white men with black servant mothers created a "free people of color." Many of those individuals claimed "Portuguese" or "Indian" heritage and identified as white in later generations. Many of those families intermarried with the white population. The melungeons are an example of this--an ethnic group of tri-racial people (black, white and native american) who still live in Appalachian areas of the US and identify as white, but who are distant descendants of racially mixed ancestors. When the laws on rights of children and citizenship were changed to give children the social and legal status of the mother, it lead to generations of primarily white/mixed blood slaves that were the product of white slave owners taking advantage and sexually abusing the slave women they owned over generations. If those individuals were able to escape, or relocated after the civil war, many of them also blended into the white community, identified as white, and married into the white community. Melungeon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
My only point in all of this is that, if you are from a family that immigrated here early, and settled in the southeast when that area was still frontier, it's entirely possible that you have black ancestry, but without DNA testing, in most cases, it's impossible to prove or disprove based on records alone.
Whether or not President Harding had black ancestry or not his cause of death was not sinister, despite attempts to paint it as such.
He let Washington for a strenuous trip out west in June of 1923. Prior to his journey at least one doctor (Dr. Nibor) noted he complained of chest pains radiating down his left arm which is a classic symptom of a heart attack. Harding had trouble sleeping and physically found even golfing nine wholes of golf to be arduous. The trip required Harding to give numerous public speeches and informal talks. Traveling in 1923 was much more complicated than today. Most of the journey was made by railroad car with periodic short trips in automobiles. The portion of the trip that took Harding to Alaska was made on a naval ship.
It should be remembered that Harding was 57 years of age in 1923. The average life expectancy for a male in this time period was much less than it is today. Most men didn't live beyond age 60. Harding was President of the United States which even in peacetime is to put it mildly, a stressful job. Information was coming to light about the Tea Pot Dome Scandal and other corruption in his administration which made the stress issue even worse. Herbert Hoover served as Secretary of Commerce under Harding and related in his book that Harding was suffering greatly, trying to comprehend the "wretched stealing" of some of his appointees.
There was easy way to diagnosis high blood pressure at the time and there was no treatment for high blood pressure. No one knew the slightest thing about cholesterol or medications to reduce it. If cardiology existed as a sub-specialty of medicine, it was in its infancy as a field.
When Harding returned from Alaska, he took to his hotel room with an illness in Seattle. The story that is reported is that when he later arrived in San Francisco, he was talking to his wife, Florence, and literally passed out and died in the middle of a conversation with her.
Because no autopsy was done and because of the corruption in his administration some people have always engaged in sinister speculation that he was poisoned. There is no evidence that supports this. All the available evidence points heavily in the direction that his cause of death was either a stroke or heart attack.
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