Every living President is a descendant of slaveholders … except Donald Trump

Investigation calls on politicians, constituency to reflect on ancestral ties to slavery amid $US14 trillion push for reparation payments to black Americans.

US President Donald Trump meets with rapper Kanye West in the Oval Office in 2018. Picture: AFP

Former President Donald Trump is the only living president not descended from slave owners, according to a new investigation by Reuters that highlights the significant share of top US politicians whose ancestors owned slaves.

Five living current and former US presidents, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden, were descended from men who together owned 83 slaves, including 54 attributed to ancestors of Jimmy Carter and 25 to those of George Bush.

The revelations come as far-left Democrats call for $US14 trillion in national reparation payments for black Americans as compensations for slavery and discrimination.

Former presidents Obama, who owned slaves through his white mother’s family, and Clinton declined to comment on the findings.

“The White House had no comment on … Biden’s ancestral ties to slavery. The president’s great-great-great-grandfather enslaved a 14-year-old boy in 1850, census records show,” Reuters said.

Henry Louis Gates Jr, a professor at Harvard University who focuses on African-American issues, told Reuters the findings were “a learning opportunity for each individual … for their constituency … and for the American people as a whole”.

“It’s just to say: Look at how closely linked we are to the institution of slavery, and how it informed the lives of the ancestors of people who represent us in the United States Congress today”.

Donald Trump’s family immigrated to the US in the 19th century from Europe after slavery was abolished.

A push for formal reparation payments to black Americans gained movement after the killing of black Minneapolis resident George Floyd by police in May 2020, which triggered widespread riots across the country and fuelled a Black Lives Matter movement.

Last month Democrat congresswoman Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib introduced a bill to provide trillions in reparations for black Americans – who numbered around 47 million in 2021 according to Pew Research – in the form of cash payments and housing investments.

Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. Picture: AFP

In March the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, part of the city government, offered in principle support to recommendations that would cost taxpayers over $US100 billion, including cancelling all debts for, and paying $US5 million in compensation to, every eligible black resident.

The Reuters analysis found at least 8 per cent of Democrat legislators and 28 per cent of Republicans were descended from slave owners, reflecting the concentration of Republicans in southern states in recent years, where slave owning was common until the Civil War.

“Two of the nine sitting US Supreme Court justices – Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch – also have direct ancestors who enslaved people,” the Reuters analysis also found, along with 11 current governors and 100 congressman and women.

For America's political elite, family links to slavery abound https://t.co/lnZeGMxe9Epic.twitter.com/VHrw6tkF10

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 27, 2023

A spokesman for 98-year-old Jimmy Carter, whose family owned 54 slaves four generations ago, said Mr Carter had “been a champion of racial justice since his time as Governor of Georgia and he has written extensively on how he first understood race and how it impacted him, his life, and his political life”.

Mr Trump, the frontrunner to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, won 8 per cent of the black voters in the 2020 presidential election, up from 6 per cent in 2016, according to Vox.

He attracted widespread condemnation last year after hosting lunch with disgraced black rapper Kanye West at his home in Mar-A-Lago.

Slavery and forced labour, including of children, was a common practice throughout history across the world until various abolitionist movements emerged in the 19th century.