They include eight chief executives of the 11 states that formed the Confederate States of America, which seceded and waged war to preserve slavery.
Although white people enslaved Black people in Northern states in early America, by the eve of the Civil War, slavery was almost entirely a Southern enterprise.
South Carolina, where the Civil War began, illustrates the familial ties between lawmakers and the nation’s history of slavery.
Each of the seven white lawmakers who served in the 117th Congress is a direct descendant of a slaveholder, Reuters found.
In researching America’s political elite, Reuters found names – almost always just a first name – of 712 people enslaved by the ancestors of the political elite.
Persons:
Black, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Jeanne Shaheen, Joe Biden, –, Donald Trump –, Jimmy Carter, George W, Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch –, Asa Hutchinson, Doug Burgum, Tim Scott, James Clyburn, Henry McMaster, ”, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Gates, ” “, ” Gates, enslavers, Tony Burroughs, Biden, Obama, McConnell, “ it’s, ” Burroughs, LINDSEY GRAHAM, Joseph Maddox, Maddox, Sela, Rubin, James, Sal, Sam ”, Graham, Graham didn’t, NANCY MACE, Nancy Mace, Drucilla Mace, John Mace, Hector Godbolt, John Mace’s, Godbolt, “, ” Nancy Mace, TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Duckworth, Henry Coe, Coe, Margaret, Isaac, Warner, George …, Isaac Franklin –, “ There’s, ” Duckworth, Tom Bergin, Makini Brice, Nicholas P, Brown, Donna Bryson, Lawrence Delevingne, Brad Heath, Andrea Januta, Gui Qing Koh, Tom Lasseter, Grant Smith, Maurice Tamman, Blake Morrison
Organizations:
U.S, Reuters, Republicans, Supreme, Republican, Harvard University, PBS, United States Congress, Geographic, Journalists, Black, Thomson
Locations:
America, U.S, Confederate States, Arkansas, North Dakota, Black, Northern, Southern, South Carolina, Congress, New Hampshire , Maine, Massachusetts, United States, Illinois, Virginia, Frederick County , Virginia