Is Obama Really the "First" Black American President?

Is it me or we as Black people just don’t get it?: Obama is not the “First” Black American President! Why are we thinking so?

See, every time other people define who you are instead of yourself defining who you are, and you accept it without any critical analysis, you find yourself in contradiction with yourself. And any time other people write on things that involve your life and you don't take time out to ascertain the facts before you agree, you get yourself in a confused state of mind.

Willie Lynch, to whom lynching and the lynch law is attributed, once observed, "If you don’t want the Black man to know something, drop it in the book.” The assumption is, the Black man does not read. Here is the simplistic one: Place a hundred dollar Bill in a book and give it to a Black man, the Bill will remain in the book forever. Why? We are made to believe that the Black man won't open the book. Because he won't read it. Whether or not it is true becomes another story!

So from all I know personally, each time a White man says something we (Black people) accept it to be true. Because a White man says it is true. We do not counter-check. Even though this sort of tendency does not apply to all Black people, it happens to most Black people everywhere.

Here is one of those White man's tricks. Few of them continue to say that Obama is the "first" Black American President. Now everywhere I turn, that's what Black people keep saying. They say Obama is the “first” American Black President! Most times some of our highly educated people join the show and make the same claim. This sort of claim always turns off a well-informed person.

I used to handle this kind of miseducation and misinformation with a care-free-and- don’t-care attitude. Because at the time, I could not reach too many people in helping to reshape our thought process as a people and nation. But thanks to the Internet. I can write on my BEDELL SPEAKS & WORKS! Blog and make a significant contribution to issues of grave significance. I have the power now. And I'm wielding it so very well devoid of prejudice!

What forces me out on this issues is when lately I heard in a Star Radio Studio on the “I beg to differ” Talk Show in Monrovia. Some of the panelists kept saying Obama is the "first" Black US President. I wanted to kept quite. Because the issues calls for a long debate. But I could not hold back. I had to let it go! I openly told the entire listening audience that Obama is not the "first" Black man to become President of the US. When many heard this, it broke up the discussion in Liberia. I am invited almost everywhere to rip apart this false claim circulating that Obama is the "first" Black President of the US.

Every time the White man says something, we (Black people) believe it. The White man said the earth was flat. And we believed it. Soon he changed. And then he says it is round. Whether it is true or not, we believe it too. In most cases, the White man argument always sounds good to us! As a result, we buy into it and move on without any question!

Pluto - one time a Planet was “discovered” in 1930. But it is booted out of its position by the White man in August 2006. It was sitting up there minding its own business. Whatever it did to the White man, one morning we woke up from our beds and "Bang!" the White man evicted Pluto from the Solar System. Since then we are told Pluto is no more a Planet. Without asking questions, Black man has accepted and believed it.

The White man tells us Science is “Universal. Then he comes back and says there is African and Western “Science.” In essence, he splits the Universality claim. And this is to undermine what he calls African "Science" to an inferiority position. Right away he sends us the bias message. Without delay, Black people accept it. As a result, we ban Sassywood in Liberia! But notice, nuclear weapons and waste keep floating all over the world without any attempt to control it!

We come to the Titanic Ship. It was a big ship built by the White man to challenge certain natural laws. He said the Titanic was unsinkable. So he pumped in $7.5 million to build it. He hired 2000 men to work on it. When it was loaded, it weighed 46,328 tons. About almost a mile long in length. But nature being nature, the Ship sank. On board were 22, 768 passengers. Check this out: the same White man made a movie out of the wreck to exalt his work. In the Movie nothing is mentioned about any Black man on board. It talked about only White people. Without asking questions, the black man again agrees that there was no Black man on board. Soon, research proved us wrong. Mr. Joseph Phillipe Lemercier Laroche, his wife and two kids were on board. Laroche was a Haitian; A true Black man; 100% Black; No preservatives. This Black man traveled to France to study engineering. At completion he couldn't find a good-paying job. Discrimination forced him back to Haiti. And he and his entire family boarded the Titanic. When it wrecked on April 14, 1912 Joseph died. But his wife (white) and two kids (color) survived. They continued to Haiti. Later on they returned back to France. Don’t ask me why!

Let’s talk about Black American Presidents. Joel A. Rogers and Dr. Auset Bakhufu have both written books documenting that at least five former presidents of the United States had Black people among their ancestors. If one considers the fact that European men far outnumbered European women during the founding of this country, and that the rape and impregnation of an African female slave was not considered a crime, it is even more surprising that these two authors could not document Black ancestors among an ever larger number of former presidents. The Black president’s names include Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge. The best case for Black ancestry is against Warren Harding, America’s 29th president from 1921 until 1923. Harding himself never denied his ancestry. When Republican leaders called on Harding to deny the "Negro" history, he said, "How should I know whether or not one of my ancestors might have jumped the fence." 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.


Just imagine what happened in most recent time when Thomas Jefferson’s slave children were identified in the United States Thomas Jefferson and his slave children: In the 1860 census in the South, there were 500,000 mulatto or mixed race slaves and 350,000 slave owners. Thus, every slave owner had on average produced more than one slave child. The slave children of former President Thomas Jefferson, and their direct descendants, are among the most carefully studied families in the history of America because of their outstanding achievements up to and including Chairman of the Board of DuPont Chemical Corporation.
Thomas Jefferson was married to Martha Wayles, the daughter of John Wayles, for 10 years before she died in 1776. Upon the death of Martha Wayles and her father, Jefferson inherited 11,000 acres of land and 135 slaves. Sally Hemmings was one of the slaves inherited. She was also a daughter of John Wayles and an African slave, and thus his wife's half sister. Jefferson fell in love with this mulatto slave after she accompanied his daughter to France, where he was U.S. Ambassador in 1787. Their first son "Tom" was born in 1789. Sally Hemmings produced Beverly Hemmings in 1798, while Thomas Jefferson was Vice President, and three other children while Jefferson was President, including Harriet in 1801, Madison in 1805, and Eston in 1808.

Beverly and Harriet Hemmings were allowed to run away in 1822. Harriet married a White person and never acknowledged her parents. Beverly ended up in England where he also passed for White. His great-grandson, Edward Graham Jefferson, migrated back to the U.S. and became a naturalized American citizen. He subsequently became CEO of DuPont Chemical Corporation, retiring in 1986 and was a member of the Board at AT&T Corporation, Chemical Bank, and Seagram Corporation.

Every time a White man says something many of us as Blacks accept what the White man says without critically analyzing it. But when another Black man says the same thing or disagrees with the White man, we come falling on him like ton of bricks asking him to provide "proof." But mind you, we never ask the White man to provide "proof" for what he claims.

White man says Barrack Obama is the "first" Black President of the United States of America. And without asking questions, we agree! But based on the information aforementioned, he is the sixth. The difference between Obama and the rest is that Obama pronounced and widely acknowledged his Blackness. The rest did not! So don't believe that Obama is the "first" US President. There were more!

I am Thomas G. Bedell. I am writing to you from on the “Ground” in Liberia.