More Than 100 U.S. Leaders Have Slaveholding Ancestors: Reuters

A Reuters examination has found that a fifth of the nation’s congressmen, living presidents, Supreme Court (SC) justices and governors are descendants of ancestors who enslaved Blacks.

Photo Insert: Among 536 members of the last sitting Congress, Reuters found that at least 100 descend from slaveholders.

Among 536 members of the last sitting Congress, Reuters found that at least 100 descend from slaveholders.

More than a quarter of the Senate – 28 members – can trace their families to at least one slaveholder, Tom Bergin, Makini Brice, Nicholas P. Brown, Donna Bryson, Lawrence Delevingne, Brad Heath, Andrea Januta, Gui Qing Koh and Tom Lasseter reported for a Reuters.

Those lawmakers from the 117th session of Congress are Democrats and Republicans alike. They include the most influential politicians in America-- Republican senators Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton and James Lankford, and Democrats Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan.

In addition, President Joe Biden and every living former US president – except Donald Trump – are direct descendants of slaveholders: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and – through his white mother’s side – Barack Obama.

Trump’s ancestors came to America after slavery was abolished. Two of the nine sitting US Supreme Court (SC) justices – Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch – also have direct ancestors who enslaved people.

And in 2022, the governors of 11 of the 50 US states were descendants of slaveholders, Reuters found. They include eight chief executives of the 11 states that formed the Confederate States of America (CSA), which seceded and waged war to preserve slavery.

Two are seeking the Republican nomination for president: Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas, and Doug Burgum of North Dakota. South Carolina, where the Civil War began, illustrates the familial ties between the American political elite and the nation’s history of slavery.

Every member of the state’s nine-person delegation to the last Congress has an ancestral link.

The state’s two Black members of Congress – Senator and Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott and Representative James Clyburn, a powerful Democrat – have forebears who were enslaved.

Each of the seven white lawmakers who served in the 117th Congress is a direct descendant of a slaveholder, Reuters found. So too is the state’s Republican governor, Henry McMaster.

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