Report: Donald Trump is the only living former US president who is not a direct descendant of slaveholders

A carved slab of sandstone at the U.S. Capitol’s visitor center serves as a poignant reminder that Black Americans who were formerly in slavery helped construct the building that now houses the country’s Congress.

According to a bronze inscription, the stone, which was formerly a component of the building’s facade, “commemorates their important role in building the Capitol.”

Many politicians may discover a far deeper personal connection to slavery in America, a horrific system of oppression that gave rise to the worst battle in American history, by simply looking at their own family histories.

A Reuters investigation into the ancestry of America’s political elite revealed that a quarter of the country’s legislators, living presidents, Supreme Court justices, and governors are descended directly from individuals who owned Black people as slaves.

Reuters found that at least 100 of the 536 members of the last Congress are descended from slaveowners. 28 senators, or more than a quarter of the total, can trace their ancestry to at least one slaveowner.

The members of Congress from the 117th Congress include both Democrats and Republicans. The Republican senators Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, and James Lankford, as well as the Democrats Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Jeanne Shaheen, and Maggie Hassan, are among the most powerful politicians in the country.

Additionally, all living past presidents of the United States, with the exception of Donald Trump, including Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama (on his white mother’s side), are sprung directly from slaveowners. Trump’s forefathers arrived in America after the abolition of slavery.

Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, two of the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court who are now on the bench, both have direct ancestors who were slave owners.

None of the 118 chiefs cited by Reuters denied that at least one of their ancestors had held people in slavery, although few were open to talking about it: Only 25% of people whose forebears were identified as slaveholders responded to Reuters’ request for comment.

Democratic representative from California Julia Brownley was one of those who did respond when Reuters sent her a paper concerning her ancestor Jesse Brownley. In Portsmouth, Virginia, her ancestor had three slaves, according to the 1850 census. One was a female, age 8.

The lesson was “profound,” Brownley told Reuters. “I was really struck to the core when I learned that my great-great-grandfather had two slaves and a child slave,” the speaker said.

Virginia is where Brownley was raised. She said that when desegregation was implemented in her town’s public schools, her parents sent her three hours away to an all-white ladies boarding school. When she attended Mount Vernon College, a women’s institution that subsequently merged with George Washington University, to study political science and history, her world expanded and she met more people, including a Black roommate.

Each member of Congress has to be aware of and adapt to their background, she added, adding that she believes this is crucial. “We want to advance our nation toward a more perfect union, if you will, as policymakers and members of Congress. But we can’t achieve it without also being aware of the wounds in our past. And we need to be aware of it and have faith in the facts. And in doing so, we can create better policies.

According to board-certified genealogist LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, who collaborated with Reuters to examine its findings, the analysis by Reuters indicates how closely bound America is still to the system of slavery.

“I really expect that some of the famous people whose genealogies we analyzed would reflect on what it means that they, once again, were kind of indirect benefactors of slavery, particularly in light of this Reuters study. It wasn’t a recent event that occurred 200 years ago. You are a direct descendant of someone who profited from this institution, and you may be able to sway others who are now active in policymaking to see things differently because of that,” stated Garrett-Nelson

Reuters journalists compiled tens of thousands of bits of information from thousands of pages of documents in order to trace the political elite’s ancestry. They examined census data from the United States, including antebellum lists of slaves known as “slave schedules,” as well as tax returns, wills, estate files, family Bibles, newspaper stories, birth and death certificates, and estate records. The documents, which in some instances include family wills that mention enslaved people being inherited alongside feather mattresses and farm animals, reveal a direct connection between slavery and today’s decision-makers. They accomplish so by adding to the clean narrative presented by the sandstone monument located in the Capitol’s tourist center.

The hunt for his ancestors goes on for Representative Gregory Meeks, a Black lawmaker who represents a district in Queens, New York. Meeks, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview that he has been researching his family tree for years in an effort to determine its origins before 1870.

He discovered his grandfather’s birth certificate, who was born soon after freedom. According to the information provided, that man’s father, Meeks’ great-grandfather, was a slave.

Meeks said that he had both public and private conversations with his white congressional colleagues regarding their ancestry.

Sometimes, especially when discussing financial services and eradicating wealth gaps, access to money, and being able to advance, it does come down to the committee. Yes, I speak out and describe it in vivid detail to try to explain the perspective of me and America at the time and how, if we acknowledge that and move forward to try to erase that and ensure that we’re letting people catch up, that we’re having and we will have a better America,” Meeks said.

Meeks said that around 15 years ago he had a DNA test that revealed his family was descended from the Mende people of Sierra Leone. He led a congressional group to Africa the previous year. The parliamentarians visited Bunce Island, a historic harbor for the trade of slaves, in Sierra Leone.

He said that going to the port was the most emotional part of the journey for him since it gave him a chance to consider his forefathers’ struggles.

“As I closed my eyes, I could almost see what was happening as I was standing on that island at the moment. So there were tears as well as delight. I’m happy to be here. Tears for the struggles that my forefathers had to endure, he remarked. Both delight and tears.