THE BLACK MCCAINS

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JOHN SYDNEY MCCAIN III'S SLAVE-TRADER ANCESTORS FATHERED "MIXED" CHILDREN

MANY DESCENDANTS STILL LIVE NEAR THE OLD PLANTATION & HOLD INTEGRATED FAMILY REUNIONS



Mississippi John McCain Refuses To Acknowledge Black Relatives, History; Won't Attend Reunions Of His Own Family

John Sydney McCain III's racist attitudes and campaign tactics begin to make a little more sense when you read his history. He's not a native of racist Arizona, where he opposed the institution of the Martin Luther King holiday. McCain was born in a segregated military base in Panama, and raised, in part, in Teoc, Mississippi, his family's ancestral home. His great-grandfather was a Confederate soldier, which led McCain to oppose removing the Stars & Bars from the State flag, citing "tradition." The tradition included, and in fact was based on, buying, selling and ruthlessly exploiting human beings with black skin. McCain's great-grandfather and other McCain's were slave-owners and slave-traders in Mississippi.

Whether John McCain himself has black blood is a matter for the geneticists to work out. It is of little interest, except to his racist supporters. It is ironic that he finds himself running against another man of "mixed" ancestry, a man whose own father came from Africa. The McCain campaign has made much of Obama's African ancestry. The Republicans have also tried to smear Obama by digging up Obama's distant African relatives, and claiming that Obama has neglected or refused to acknowledge them. Yet here we have McCain himself neglecting and refusing to acknowledge his whole family, even the whites who accept their black cousins and acknowledge their troubled shared past in an attempt at reconciliation.

As the historic 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign draws to a close, the true histories of the two candidates provide insight into their character and their future conduct. As a man of the people, son of an immigrant, a minority within a minority who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps and worked his way to the top, Barack Hussein Obama exemplifies the American Dream, and holds out a shining example of true democracy to the entire world. He knows what it is like to struggle and do without, and he can be relied upon to represent the interests of all those who struggle and do without in hopes of a better life.

John McCain is a man of wealth and power, a son of privilege, an hereditary member of the ruling elite who slacked off and relied on his family connections all his life, finishing by abandoning his crippled wife and children to run away and live off a rich, drug-addicted woman. Now he is appealing to the worst elements of the American polity in a desperate grab for power. John Sydney McCain III is a banana Republican, and hardly an American at all: Certainly no example to the rest of us. He represents the worst of our past, and no future at all.

Unlike Obama, McCain neither knows nor cares what it is like for the rest of us to have to struggle daily to provide our families with food and shelter, health care and transportation, education and some kind of a future. John Sidney McCain III, of the Mississippi McCain's, is, by his own admission, wholly ignorant of every element of the real lives of ordinary Americans. His knee-jerk defense and support of the interests of corporations and wealthy individuals like himself is in direct opposition to the interests of the rest of us: Hard-working Americans who need a defender in Washington like Obama who will fight for our interests, not against them as McCain has done all his life.

The choice is simple: The dark, racist past of privilege and abusive, untrammeled wealth & power, the parasitic few lording it over us all; or a bright, inclusive, tolerant, diverse, truly democratic future of economic fairness and equal justice for all, where we take control of our own destiny, and manage our country for our own benefit, all of us. It's all there in black and white.

GATHER.COM
"McCain's black family ties"

' Since the advent of the Southern Strategy under Nixon, the Republican Party has embraced its role as the Party of White Privilege. John McCain has made a modest career out of making rumbling noises toward some of the uglier aspects of this legacy within the GOP, and he's hoping that those rumbles will be enough to persuade moderate voters to back him. However, the cold realities of the history of race relations in America -- dating back to those dark eons when black women held in slavery were routinely raped and impregnated by their white owners -- still hover like a dark cloud over whites' vision of Golden Age America, the very vision that John McCain and Sarah Palin like to sell to their flocks like so much Coca-Cola. So it's perhaps not a surprise that, given the chance to banish that cloud by doing the human thing, the right thing, and embracing the black side of the McCain family, the Straight Talking Senator From Arizona chose essentially to run from them and hide. Because acknowledging them not only was too painful, but might prove too harmful to his chances of success in a political party predicated on white privilege. '

LONDON TELEGRAPH
"Descendents of slaves owned by ancestors of John McCain will vote for Barack Obama"

' Lillie McCain, 56, a professor of psychology in Flint, Michigan, traces her lineage from two of more than 120 black slaves before the end of the Civil War at Teoc, the Mississippi plantation owned by the family of Republican nominee John McCain's great-great-grandfather. Lillie McCain's family is descended from two slaves, named Isom and Lettie, according to interviews and examinations of family documents, county files and U.S. Census Bureau records. According to members of the white McCain family, the plantation was purchased by Mr McCain's great-great-grandfather, William Alexander McCain, in 1851. "We've had the pleasure of meeting Joe McCain," she said, "He attends the reunions at Teoc ... I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Senator McCain. "I heard him say on, I believe it was Meet the Press, that his ancestors owned no slaves. Well, I certainly have carried the name McCain from the beginning of my life, and I've known the ties to John McCain, and have tried to get him to communicate with me about that, but he has been unwilling at least to date." Miss McCain urged John McCain to "acknowledge the reality of the relationship that we hold." "I am absolutely supporting Obama, and it's not because he's black," said Lillie. "It's because he is the best person at this time in our history." '

SALON
"McCain's ancestors owned slaves"

' The family's storied military history stretches back to Carroll County, Miss., where McCain's great-great grandfather William Alexander McCain owned a plantation, and later died during the Civil War as a soldier for the Mississippi cavalry. But what McCain didn't know about his family until Tuesday was that William Alexander McCain had owned 52 slaves. The senator seemed surprised after Salon reporters showed him documents gathered from Carroll County Courthouse, the Carrollton Merrill Museum, the Mississippi State Archives and the Greenwood, Miss., Public Library. "I didn't know that," McCain said in measured tones wearing a stoic expression during a midday interview, as he looked at the documents before Tuesday night's debate. "I knew they had sharecroppers. I did not know that." "It's very impactful," he said of learning the news. "When you think about it, they owned a plantation, why didn't I think about that before? Obviously, I'm going to have to do a little more research." '

BND.COM
"McCain families sprang from Mississippi plantation"

' One of the slaves was Roy McCain's great-great-grandmother, Evelyn McCain. She never married but had four children. "They were mixed kids by the slaveowner and her," Roy McCain said, speaking of William's brother, Joe. "They were bi-racial." Such relationships were neither confirmed nor denied by the Wall Street Journal when it published a profile of the family two weeks ago. But reporter Douglas Blackmon noted that the black and white McCain families have long acknowledged their shared history. Sen. McCain's younger brother, also named Joe, and other white McCains have attended family reunions organized by the black McCains. "The black McCains were raised to believe that they were blood relatives of the white McCains dating back to slavery," Blackmon wrote. "White McCains say they're unaware of any biological connection between the families. A spokesman for Sen. McCain declined to comment." '

SOUTH FLORIDA TIMES
"Some of McCain's black relatives support Obama"

' In the rural Teoc community of Carroll County, Miss., where the ancestors of Sen. John McCain owned enslaved Africans on a plantation, black, white and mixed-race family members unite every two years for their Coming Home Reunion, on the land where the plantation operated. Some of McCain’s black family members say they are not sure exactly where they fall on the family tree, but they do know this: They are either descendants of the McCain family slaves, or of children the McCains fathered with their slaves. White and black members of the McCain family have met on the plantation several times over the last 15 years, but one invited guest has been conspicuously absent: Sen. John Sidney McCain. “Why he hasn’t come is anybody’s guess,” said Charles McCain Jr., 60, a distant cousin of John McCain who is black. “I think the best I can come up with, is that he doesn’t have time, or he has just distanced himself, or it doesn’t mean that much to him.” Other relatives are not as generous. Lillie McCain, 56, another distant cousin of John McCain who is black, said the Republican presidential nominee is trying to hide his past, and refuses to accept the family’s history. “After hearing him in 2000 claim his family never owned slaves, I sent him an email,” she recalled. “I told him no matter how much he denies it, it will not make it untrue, and he should accept this and embrace it.” She said the senator never responded to her email.The McCain campaign did not respond to repeated questions about John McCain’s black relatives, or about his relatives of both races who support Obama. Pablo Carrillo, a media liaison with the McCain campaign, said the senator was aware of his African-American relatives, but asked the reporter to put his questions into writing, and that someone would get back to him. After the reporter sent questions in writing, and made repeated follow-up phone calls, neither Sen. McCain nor anyone else from the campaign responded. Based on information obtained by the South Florida Times, the senator has numerous black and mixed-raced relatives who were born on, or in, the area of the McCain plantation. The mixed races in the family can be traced back to the rural Teoc community of Carroll County, Miss., where his family owned slaves. Sen. John McCain’s great, great grandfather, William Alexander McCain (1812-1863), fought for the Confederacy and owned a 2,000-acre plantation named Waverly in Teoc. The family dealt in the slave trade, and, according to official records, held at least 52 slaves on the family’s plantation. The enslaved Africans were likely used as servants, for labor, and for breeding more slaves. William McCain’s son, and Sen. John McCain’s great grandfather, John Sidney McCain (1851-1934), eventually assumed the duty of running the family’s plantation. W.A. “Bill” McCain IV, a white McCain cousin, and his wife Edwina, are the current owners of the land. Both told the South Florida Times that they attend the reunions. They also said the McCain campaign had asked them not to speak to the media about the reunions, or about why the senator has never acknowledged the family gatherings. In addition to distancing himself from his black family members, John McCain has taken several positions on issues that have put him at odds with members of the larger black community. While running for the Republican Party nomination in 2000, he sided with protesters who were calling for the rebel battle flag to be removed from the South Carolina statehouse, only to alter that position later. "Some view it as a symbol of slavery. Others view it as a symbol of heritage,” John McCain said of the flag. "Personally, I see the battle flag as a symbol of heritage. I have ancestors who have fought for the Confederacy, none of whom owned slaves. I believe they fought honorably.’’ Novelist Elizabeth Spencer, another white cousin of John McCain, noted the slaves the family owned in the family’s memoirs, Landscapes of the Heart. Sen. McCain has acknowledged reading the book, but claims to have only glossed over entries about their slaves. “That’s crazy,” said Spencer, who also attends the reunions in Teoc. “No one had to tell us, because we all knew about the slaves. I may not vote, because I don’t want anyone to think that I have an issue with John, but I don’t want to see him become president because I think Obama is entirely adequate, and it’s time for a Democrat.’’ Sen. John McCain was born in 1936 at the Coco Solo Naval Air Station, a segregated military installation in the Panama Canal, where his father was stationed in the U.S. Navy. His family returned to the states shortly after his birth; where he went on to attend segregated schools in the Teoc community and elsewhere around the country. He served in the Navy, where he was a prisoner of war during Vietnam, before being released and eventually running for Congress. After he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, McCain voted against the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday in 1983. When he arrived in the U.S. Senate in 1986, he joined North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms in opposing the holiday again, and voted in 1994 to cut funding to the commission that marketed it. John McCain also aligned himself with former Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham. Mecham was the governor in McCain’s home state of Arizona from January 1987 to April 1988, when he was impeached and removed from office for campaign finance violations. As a state senator and governor, Mecham publicly used racial slurs against black people and other minorities. He was also a member of the John Birch Society, which opposes civil rights legislation. In 1986, Mecham campaigned for governor on a promise to rescind the state’s recognition of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, which he did in 1987. “He is denying his black and white relatives in Teoc,” said Joyce McCain, 54. “I think he may not want the country to know his family’s full history, but times have changed and we need to move on, and that’s why I’m supporting Obama.” '

IREPORT.COM
"McCain's other history!!!!!!"

' Tracing the genealogies of slaves is often easy, because slaves frequently adopted the surnames of their owners. In 1876, for example, a Mary J. McCain married Isham Hurt. The two had a son, blues guitarist "Mississippi" John Hurt, in 1892 on Teoc, the plantation community where the McCains owned 2,000 acres. "Is that right?" McCain asked, after considering his possible connection to the famous bluesman, who died in 1966. "That's fascinating," he said.
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[McCain family blues music posted at CoffeeHouseStudio.]
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