Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/African-American heritage of United States presidents


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Opinions are divided between "delete" because of the apparently fringe research underlying the content and "keep" because the topic is notable as reflected by its coverage in non-fringe sources. I recommend further discussion to see whether editorial improvement or a renaming might help.  Sandstein  16:09, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

African-American heritage of United States presidents

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 * Strong delete -This page is a collection of original research and synthesis based on political fringe racial attacks, mostly from racists of the 18th and 19th centuries. If there are portions of this page that are of note, they can be merged into appropriate biographical or sub-articles. The premise of this page is absurd, and reading it reads as some kind of juvenile, racist joke. Dave Dial (talk) 04:44, 18 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Weak keep. I think 95% of this article needs to be deleted as unverifiable per WP:V. At the beginning of the section for "unverifiable" claims, the article says, "None of the claims below has been verified by reliable sources in peer-reviewed publications. Mainline historians do not support these claims." That portion should be deleted in its entirety. However, there are some portions of this article that I think may be salvageable. Specifically, the article discusses (albeit very briefly), that throughout America's history, various claims have been made about presidents having black ancestors (see these sources cited in the article:   ). Additionally, Barack Obama's African heritage is verifiable. So, in conclusion, I think we should keep this, but trim it down. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 08:41, 18 February 2016 (UTC) I am updating my vote to keep. See my comments later in this thread, and Nick Levinson's comment is on point as well. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 01:07, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The only sources there that are reliable are NPR and the NYT, both can be incorporated into the William Estabrook Chancellor article, whose work has been proven false and is considered a racist hack(during those times especially). The other 2 are in no way reliable sources, and can only be considered fringe. The manner the article currently describes these fictitious attacks are unacceptable. I will provide more reasoning in my delete !vote. Dave Dial (talk) 04:59, 19 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep The nominator is confusing truth with verifiability. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:12, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Incorrect. The article is based on original research and fringe political attacks in the 18th and 19th centuries. There are almost no sources for this, and the ones that are there can be incorporated into any of the main articles. Dave Dial (talk) 04:59, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment -- This is a collection of political attacks based in innuendos, rumors and outright lies. The article starts off with this caveat:"The topic ...relates mostly to questions and claims made by amateur historians as to whether five presidents of the United States...had significant... African ancestry...The academic consensus of historians is that no president other than Obama has had...African ancestry...it rejects claims to the contrary." What? And then we have this:"These claims have been made by the historian William Estabrook Chancellor, amateur historian J. A. Rogers, ophthalmologist Dr. Leroy William Vaughn, and Dr. Auset BaKhufu. All but Chancellor base their theories chiefly on the work of J. A. Rogers, who apparently self-published a pamphlet in 1965... Vaughn's and BaKhufu's books also appear to have been self-published... These authors are generally ignored by scholars. They repeat each other's material and are classified as 'rumormongers and amateur historians.'"Why are we providing article space for such silly rumors? Are we a blog now for amature historians and ophthalmologists with too much time on their hands to be able to spread their obviously untrue fringe theories that are ignored by serious historians and scholars? This so-called article isn't worth the space it takes up, and the manner in which it is presented in the body describes these claims as if they were true. Who write that tripe? Dave Dial (talk) 04:59, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Dave Dial: First of all, I am striking your second vote here. As nominator, your original nomination counts as the first vote (to delete). You do not get to vote again in this discussion, but you can respond in the form of follow-up comments in this discussion. Second, it is important to distinguish between (1) articles that describe notable theories that have been discredited by mainstream academics and (2) articles that purport to present discredited theories as truth. There is nothing wrong with having an article about a discredited theory, so long as the article explains that the theory has been rejected by mainstream scholars (see WP:FRINGE and WP:WEIGHT). Indeed, Wikipedia has many such articles (see, e.g., flat earth, bigfoot, and many others at the list of topics characterized as pseudoscience). The portions of the article quoted above are evidence of this article's attempts to comply with Wikipedia policies by telling the reader that these claims should not be taken seriously (per WP:WEIGHT). -- Notecardforfree (talk) 06:23, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Since I have very little experience in nominating articles for deletion, I will take your word for the reason you struck my !vote and move my strong delete to my original comment. As for fringe theories becoming articles, I am well aware of that fact. But they are not presented in the title as true, and most are well researched or have a long history of many people believing in them. This collection of rubbish has neither. Not to mention it has biographical significance. Spreading lies about biographical subjects has extra care and sourcing. The article put up for deletion is just a collection of rumors and political attacks, that have no basis in research or reliable coverage.Dave Dial (talk) 15:03, 19 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep A number of reliable sources have discussed the historical possibility that previous presidents have had African forebears. e.g., New York Times, NPR, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. An article discussing these claims from a neutral POV serves a valuable educational purpose. I might suggest, however, that the article be moved to a less conclusory title, such as Possible African-American heritage of United States presidents or Claims of African-American heritage of United States presidents. 24.151.10.165 (talk) 17:02, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Strong keep with all content but a move is legitimate: This is an important topic in African American history, not of the top rank but important before Obama's candidacy, because of some degree of perception among some in Black communities that some Presidents may have been Black and also among Whites who despised the Presidents and candidates whom they believed were Negro (when Whites used their more polite language back then) and therefore, because of race, should not be elected. Therefore, breaking it up and distributing pieces into separate biographies hides the topic, which is notable in itself. Wikipedia does not overrule sources to find truth, but reports what sources say. The objection to original research is that which is original in Wikipedia; the fact that a source presents original research is not objected to by Wikipedia or probably most of Wikipedia would disappear. Likewise for synthesis: Wikipedia is not doing the synthesis. Some source authors probably did, but we don't delete because sources contain synthesis, only if the Wikipedia content synthesizes what the sources do not say or support. For example, Michelson and Morley did a physics experiment and came to a conclusion; Einstein drew a very different conclusion; we can report what Einstein concluded without worrying about whether it's synthesis by him. While Einstein's work is accepted as itself true, here's an example of a claim that is likely still in dispute: the 1421 discovery of America. We reported it. As long as the original research and the synthesis are not Wikipedia's own, they can stay. Verifiability for the purpose of inclusion in Wikipedia is not about whether a claim can be verified with, say, DNA testing; that's up to a source author. Verifiability for Wikipedia is about whether the cited source can be found and the content can be traced to the source/s cited; on both points, they can be. The issue about biographies, I assume about stating what is contentious about the named individuals, only applies to the living, and, even so, negative information about the living is reportable (see, e.g., Son of Sam). Whether as negative or as positive, it's unlikely Obama will object to what Wikipedia says; the subject about him was widely and almost endlessly discussed in news media and books and he was elected and re-elected despite detractors' efforts to discredit his right to hold office. All of the other Presidents with subsections in the article are dead. It appears that at least one Presidential family of descendants prefers to deny the connection, but Wikipedia doesn't rely on a family's wish against reporting. That this topic is partly borne in racism is true, but we report on racism and its various manifestations. The topic is also partly borne in pride, especially predating Obama's candidacy. We report on manifestations of pride, too. The population's percentage that believed in various parts of this was probably never a majority but also likely was significant, especially before Obama's election; it's the kind of topic that would have been talked about quietly, from either hope or fear. The flat-Earth claim was probably never believed by many people except by inlanders who didn't see an ocean, and that would have been relatively few in any era, but we report the claim anyway. Some claims of African ancestry are not flatly deniable, such as one by a President who declined to rule out African ancestry for himself when asked. We report what the sources say. We've taken some care to prevent people from getting confused about whether to list more than one President as having recent (relative to their year of birth) African ancestry, but have also let people read the gist of what the sources say, ranging from rumor and possible invention to reasonable facts, all gathered together because they form one topic. We rely on sources, with appropriate characterizations for clarity, some of which are quoted above, illustrating precisely that clarity is present. We have not presented claims as true beyond what sources say; we have stated their intellectual weakness. With respect to a move, either of the proposed article titles is acceptable, as neither one rules out the claims categorically and either one may help to clarify how much credence the claims should be given. Nick Levinson (talk) 06:13, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:32, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:32, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:32, 21 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete this travesty of an article, which is more or less an attempt to revive the One-drop rule. Note that we already have extensive coverage of the ancestry of all U.S. presidents.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:50, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The article itself is not an attempt to do anything about the one-drop rule except to report. Articles on U.S. Presidents would probably not carry most of this as it wouldn't be due weight there, but within the subject of whether anyone (partly) Black made it into the White House this addresses those questions. Wikipedia doesn't categorize Atlantis as a continent, but does as a fictional continent, thus keeping it separate while discussing the myth. Nick Levinson (talk) 03:44, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I usually WP:AGF, because most editors act in good faith. Here, however, I was wrong in my assumption.  Allow me to be extremely blunt This article is, as i explain just below, a transparent attempt to plant in the minds of readers who trust Wikipedia the utterly false idea that evidence for this fringe theory exists.  I have made a fuller statement  just below, and will make a further claim at the bottom of the page.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:04, 25 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete 90% of the article is fringe. No indication it passes GNG or that the topic is notable outside of its own fringe universe. J bh  Talk  17:12, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * But it is not a violation of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines to write an article about a theory that has been rejected (see, e.g., the Loch Ness Monster), as long as the article clearly states that the theory is bogus. To me, it sounds like this article warns readers that these theories are baseless. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 17:32, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * User:Notecardforfree, I can see how it might look that way. But if you read it again, you will see that although the article is framed as a fair presentation, it is loaded with weasel words.  Look at the Harding section. You find phrases like  "Many biographers have dismissed the rumors of Harding's mixed-race family as little more than a political scandal and Chancellor himself as a Democratic mudslinger and racist ideologue."  Fact: his biographers have uniformly dismissed this nonsense as rumor after establishing beyond any doubt that they were in fact nothing more than mudslinging fabrications cooked up by a racist political opponent of Harding's.   Although the article creator does accurately characterize the main source of this mudslinging, William Estabrook Chancellor, as a racist, he fails to state plainly that Chancellor's book was a mere campaign smear.  Instead, by innuendo he plants doubts in the reader's mind, "Chancellor publicized rumors, based on supposed family research, but perhaps reflecting no more than local gossip." and, "When asked directly about Chancellor's account, Harding did not make any effort to deny that he may have had an African-American ancestor.", and "In 2015 genetic testing of Harding's descendants determined, with more than a 95% percent chance of accuracy, that he lacked sub-Saharan African forbears within four previous generations."  But there is no evidence whatsoever that  Harding had African ancestry, none that would pass Wikipedia standards of reliable sourcing. The entire article is a pastiche of sly innuendo lending credibility to dusty racist rumors.  An article about the dirty nature of 19th century American politics, or about the Harding campaign might appropriately treat such rumors as part of a discussion of campaign mudslinging, but this article is some sort of a stalking horse that seems to be intended to give some sort of bogus credibility to rumors with no basis in evidence.   Now just imagine for a minute that there was even a shred of credible evidence that any of the rumors this editor is peddling were true.  An historian could make his career by publishing such evidence.  It would set off a small industry of commentary and about the fraught and infinitely complex role of race in America.  I can think of few things that would excite Americanists more than finding evidence that John Punch (slave) actually was an ancestor of Obama's, or that Abraham Lincoln's mother Nancy Hanks was the descendant of enslaved Africans.  We need to delete this article because there is not a shred of evidence for the statement, in the article, that Obama, through his mother, is "thought also to be descended from the African indentured servant known in colonial records as John Punch."   Nor for any of the rest of the rumors this article retails with its weasel wording.E.M.Gregory (talk) 02:17, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your willingness to take the time to write out such a thorough and thoughtful response. I am also concerned that a reader may find this article and assume that the claims presented here are true, though I think the way to respond is to cut out the weasel words and emphasize that these claims are baseless, rather than to delete this article in its entirety. Indeed, making claims about a politician's African American heritage was a common strategy of 19th century mudslingers, and I think it is a phenomenon that should be included in this encyclopedia. It is a phenomenon that is certainly an ugly chapter in America's history, but it is one that has received coverage by historians (see, e.g. this summary in Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History). However, I would also support moving the article to a title like "Claims of African-American heritage of United States presidents" to be clear that this article is about a WP:FRINGE phenomenon. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 03:31, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I can't speak for other editors who worked on it over the years, and I don't think we should be ascribing unacknowledged motivations to them. A subject such as this will usually have multiple motivators behind its presentation and I think we can respect editors for what they are doing.
 * When multiple views are sourceable, we add. We don't delete because there's a disagreement between sources. Additional information, such as that proposed in the post above, can be added with sourcing. Sourcing is important, because the post above essentially denies claims such as Harding's own that left the possibility open, and what we need is a source countering whether Harding made the statement. Even if he changed his mind later, both statements would be reportable. And he apparently took the view that the possibility of his being partly Black shouldn't matter, which may have been an antiracist view from a President at a time when that could have been more difficult than it would be today. Wikipedia does not determine whether a source is reliable by whether it reports DNA testing or meets the standards of the most modern academics but uses a wider standard of reliability and does allow the careful and supplemental use of non-secondary sources to add information. Weasel words can be replaced, although those in quotations or in reasonable paraphrases may belong as reflecting the sentiments of the times and utterers. In short, we're glad if you and others would make the article more informative. But to rewrite it with a viewpoint (e.g., that none of it has any validity whatsoever) when even reliable sources are less than uniform on that viewpoint would make it not neutral. We have to neutrally reflect sources.
 * People often look up topics because they don't know they're fringe topics. Wikipedia covers them and says they're fringe, thereby educating readers. Our standard is not whether leading academics agree that a subject is true, although we do point out scholarly views for and against. Our standard is to reflect what the sources say. It cites secondary sources; it generally meets GNG; and it is more informative than simply burying somewhere else a statement that the thought existed without saying much about what that thought was. Being so brief that it would be vague about what was said is not useful to understanding history and public discourse. Ending racism is a great idea but, frankly, that won't be achieved by hiding subjects that grew out of it. And many people who considered the subject did so not out of hatred of Blacks but out of pride in the possibility that fellow Blacks were more prominent than had been thought; sometimes that's factually incorrect, but once it's sourced we can report the mix of views, and, for a topic like this, we should. Wikipedia does not shy from offensive topics or controversy. We report the various sides of it.
 * Nick Levinson (talk) 03:44, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

The fact is, the comparisons being made here by the couple Keep !voters are invalid. There is no way that comparisons to Flat Earth, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster or Atlantis are valid comparisons. They all have either been rigorously researched or have huge amounts of people that either have believed or still believe in them. This current article has neither and is nothing more than a few people who "repeat each other's material and are classified as "rumormongers and amateur historians."". The whole section, significance of claims, is an absurd amount of nothing but innuendo and synthesis. As well as most of this so-called article. Dave Dial (talk) 16:16, 23 February 2016 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Misleading users by innuendo and half truth I agree with User:Dave Dial, While one or two legitimate periodicals have looked into this question, this article is illegitimate because it is framed and written in a manner that uses innuendo and thoroughly discredited sources to create the impression that there is room a legitimate debate about the possible African-American ancestry of several Presidents.  Editors who have any thought that it would be really cool if, say, just one President had an enslaved African ancestor should consider the difficulty young historians, journalists, and geneticists have getting a job.  Let lonne the difficulty of earning fame, tenure and book sales.  Think for a moment about Sally Hemmings.  Then ask yourself, If there was even a shred of evidence that Abraham Lincoln was descended from an enslaved black African (as this article argues), or that Barak Obama's mother was descended from an enslaved black African,  do you really think that any of us would be here debating the notability of an article on the topic?  Or that such an article would have to be  defended with multiple thousand-word essays, instead of just by citing sources like the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Ebony and CNN who would be all over such a story if there was anything to it?   The fact is that until very recently all American Presidents were recists, as were almost all white Americas.  And the fact is that there is zero evidence that any American President had African-American ancestry, although we have gotten just far enough past racism to have elected a President whose father was an actual, honest-to-gosh African (studying in America when he married President Obama's mother.)   The problem with this article, and the reason we should delete it, is that it uses innuendo to mislead readers into believing that there is an open historical question about the ancestors of American Presidents, when, in fact, the ancestry of these men  for the last four centuries or so is among the best researched on earth.  And it is uniformly, boringly, disappointingly, not African.  Not debatable, not n actual conversation in any field of research, it's just not.  Please delete this attempt to use Wikipedia to peddle recycled, 19th century campaign smears.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:41, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 08:23, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. Americans do get all stirred up about race in a way that seems very strange to the rest of us. I am inclined to think that there is place for an article on these wild suggestions, but that the current article is not it. It is probably best to delete this as it does rant on in excessive length about things that are not supported by historical sources. I suggest deleting it and starting again with a better respect for reliable sources. -- Bduke   (Discussion)  09:41, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. Fringe material to be sure, but enough reliable sources commenting on the historical rumors to make it notable fringe material. A better title would be welcome. --Arxiloxos (talk) 17:48, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment:
 * Saying that this article advocates a viewpoint conflates Wikipedia with the sources it cites. That's not true for almost any article in Wikipedia, this article included. This article does not say that this heritage exists for most of the Presidents named. It says there were claims, and there indeed were. This article leans over backwards to say that the claims were not agreed on or were not true. That's accurate. We're reporting on the state of the belief system. It is not Wikipedia's job to restrict people to what is the right or moral belief and not mention anything else. We acknowledge what the sources say and address it, not sweep it under the rug. The rigor of research on those topics is usually on the side of refutation of the myths. The basis in support of the myths is almost never rigorously argued, because, since they're myths, they mostly can't be supported. Yet we report the claims forming the myths.
 * The above claim about the article being "a transparent attempt to plant in the minds of readers who trust Wikipedia the utterly false idea that evidence for this fringe theory exists" (bolding omitted), besides requiring that the author of that comment be a mind-reader (especially if the supposed attempter is me and it may help to remember that AGF does not require agreement on substance), is flatly wrong. My editing, at least, reflected the sources. Wikipedia does not ask scientists to be the only sources for articles even on scientific subjects. We reflect the general body of knowledge, scientific, popular, and otherwise. And it should. And, frankly, although it may displease an editor, some of what the sources say is not wrong. Even attackers can be right sometimes and not everyone identified in a source was an attacker.
 * Many sources in the article are reliable without being as well known as NPR. Some are old, like some books from decades ago. But they have not been replaced by newer ones, and even if they were we might simply have to report what both the old and new sources say. Meanwhile, many of the sources meet what Wikipedia looks for in reliable sources. We do not limit ourselves to scholarly sources, although we do draw a distinction in how we report and have abundantly done so here. Whether scholars would have made careers by substantiating the claims is interesting to truth but irrelevant to reportability of what is claimed.
 * Numbers of believers generally don't make it into Wikipedia articles. The flat Earth hypothesis probably never had many believers, because most people at any point in time had direct or indirect knowledge of oceans, thus of Earth's curvature and of watercraft and birds appearing and disappearing over the horizon, thus disproving the flatness claim even to children. Despite the scarcity of belief, we report it. The criticism of some of the source authors as rumormongers and such is reported and provides a way for readers to analyze the claims, an appropriate way of dealing with dubious claims in Wikipedia. That is not what would be done if the effort were to plant in the minds of the gullible that we've had half a dozen Black Presidents.
 * The Significance of claims section is not even close to the above characterization as "nothing but innuendo and synthesis". It is factual and rational; and I wonder how the characterization was arrived at. Exaggeration is not helpful to solving a problem, real or believed. For example, taken from that section, there is this sentence: "In recent decades, United States historians have more thoroughly explored the years of slavery and opened up discussion of race relations." Is this wrong? Is this "innuendo"? Saying the same is true of the whole article means the following is "nothing but innuendo and synthesis": that Lincoln called himself "black". That's a self-statement and we presume most people know more about their own ancestry than most other people could. That's not innuendo. Please be specific about what needs changing.
 * Please point to a single statement that is synthesis by Wikipedia. Synthesis by a source does not matter. If there is forbidden synthesis in the article, we need to take it out. But no one has pointed to a single instance of it.
 * That sources rely on each other is normal in almost all areas of research, serious and lightweight. Top academic papers usually cite other sources. We can hardly fault amateurs for citing other writers. Still, some of them have their own distinct content. That's what we report. We are not reporting that A, B, C, and D copied E and therefore any of them is true. We are reporting the distinct contribution of each as reflecting the discourse on the subject at the time indicated.
 * Merging portions into an article on campaign skulduggery would mean deleting that which was not reported as such, such as the FDR case. That would hide the subject from Wikipedia and African Americans have been very resentful of true history being hidden because it's Black or because it uncovers racism. Racism remains a major problem in this nation and much of the world and we agree that it was a major part of Presidential history. Nothing in racism is solved by hiding history or by assuming we talk about it too much (civil rights workers might point out that Blacks who were being held back drew the public's attention to the problem and within one lifespan a truly Black President was elected at last, so maybe our nation's interest in the subject isn't as strange as it is productive). Racism is advanced by hiding history, because it makes covering up and perpetuating racism easier. We may disagree with the article's sources without thereby advancing racism. And not all of the less-well-known sources are wrong.
 * If the article is really being as misunderstood as the objections above suggest, then clarifying statements should be added or proposed. But the astrology article addresses the same issue of nonbelievability quite well. Alchemy has modern truth to a bit of it, thanks to atom-smashers. And so on, including in science and in history. And we don't rename them anything like "Claims of ..." or delete them. African-American heritage claims were made and reliable sources, including books, stated those claims, enough for notability. Some of the claims were true or are indisputable. That some claims were used as campaign attacks is not Wikipedia's fault. That these were (back then) useful as attacks is interesting history. Society will not collapse because we acknowledge that history happens. And there has been pride before Obama among some African Americans (not without controversy) in considering a white President as if Black because of that President's political support for Black causes (see a brief item and a recap of the debate), a labeling that perhaps should be considered for adding to this article, as closely related to the heritage issue.
 * A move has been proposed, to help clarify. That's fine.
 * Nick Levinson (talk) 03:14, 27 February 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.