What Was President Lincoln's Ethnic Background?

President Barack Obama'due south presidency was special in that he was the first blackness person to presume the role. This meant a lot for many black people worldwide considering America's racial background is mired with hate, destruction, and cruelty beyond the sense of the word itself. Many did non call up they would live to see America'due south get-go blackness president.

Well what if this were non the case? What if nosotros already had a black president and it was hidden in obviously sight? According to some reports, this may be the case.

It is claimed that Abraham Lincoln, who became America's 16^th President on this day in 1860, was a Melungeon; a person of European, African-American and Native American ancestry.

Melungeons are typically believed to come from E Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and eastern Kentucky. Some come from the Appalachian region of the U.Due south. which spans over Canada and numerous states in the U.Due south.

Like African-Americans, Melungeons also have a painful past in America – "accept been maligned and denied their basic rights. They have been pushed off of fertile land. They take been barred from schools. They accept been prohibited from voting," according to The Washington Post .

A Melungeon family circa 1900; teacher and nurse…Johnson City Press

Lincoln's Melungeon ancestry is said to come from his mother as explained in Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe in America past Elizabeth Hirschman. The author stated, "That Abraham Lincoln was of Melungeon descent was kickoff suggested, to my cognition, by Brent Kennedy." "Kennedy comments that Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, was in all likelihood of Melungeon heritage, given several facts of her groundwork."

According to Appalachian Histories & Mysteries, "Melungeons are considered to be bi- or tri-racial individuals, of varying and debatable ethnicities ranging from African to Jewish to European, living in the Appalachian region. These people take been particularly famous for living in small enclaves in Hawkins and Hancock Counties of Eastern Tennessee, Lee, Scott, and Wise Counties of Southwest Virginia, and Western North Carolina. Smaller communities of family groups were once known to live in Western South Carolina, Southern Westward Virginia, and Eastern Kentucky. According to the Melungeon Heritage Association, at to the lowest degree 200 other mixed-ethnic groups take been identified in the Eastern The states, such equally the Guineas of West Virginia, the We-Sorts of Maryland, the Nanticokes and Moors of Delaware, the Jackson Whites of New York and New Jersey, the Cubans and Portuguese of North Carolina, the Turks and Brass Ankles of South Carolina, and the Creoles and Redbones of Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana."

The Revivalist…Melungeon Boys

Co-ordinate to the Washington Post, "Science is beginning to shed some light on origins discarded or forgotten generations ago. DNA tests in 1990 on claret samples from 177 Melungeons are consequent with Mediterranean, particularly Portuguese, traits. Testing for Turkish links is simply get-go."

Kevin Hayes, a technical manager for IBM noted, "The African American community is more accepting of non existence pure African," "This state is a greater melting pot than most people imagine. People of mixed heritage need to admit it and speak out virtually it if nosotros are going to have whatever hope of overcoming racism."