"Black Presidents?"
Various commentators have suggested a president could be recognized as the "first black president of the United States" for their contributions to the well-being of African Americans. Republican Abraham Lincoln was suggested because of his role as the "Great Emancipator" of four million blacks in the South after the American Civil War.
Toni Morrison labeled Democrat Bill Clinton the first black president of the United States. Morrison suggested that Clinton was "blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime." Author and professor Angela Dillard stated such claims constituted a "silly and defeatist notion" that separated the black community.
Read more about this topic: African American Candidates For President Of The United States
Famous quotes containing the word black:
“I respect the ways of old folks, but the blood of a rooster or a goat cannot turn the seasons, change the course of the clouds and fill them up with water like bladders. The other night, at the ceremony for Legba, I danced and sang my fill: I am a black man, no? and I enjoyed it like a true Negro should. When the drums beat, I feel it in the pit of my stomach, I feel the itch in my hips and up and down my legs, I have got to join the party. But that is all.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)