Barack Obama marked the 150th anniversary of the end of slavery today.
WATCH LIVE: Obama speaks at 150th anniversary of the 13th Amendment which ended slavery, involuntary servitude: https://t.co/ZrVA4OKmBf
— NBC 6 South Florida (@nbc6) December 9, 2015
His ancestors owned slaves.
Chicago Tribune reported:
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.
