The Black McCains
filed in Politics on Oct.20, 2008
Lordy Lordy, the news just get’s worse and worse for those poor McCan’ts.
Now it seems that in addition to taking care of 7 (or 8?) houses, buying $200,000 dresses and not knowing where Spain is….he’s got another problem made public. It seems that his family has owned slaves. Hummmm. This from someone who appeared not that long ago on Meet The Press stating emphatically that they did not. And even more ironic, he’s known about these ‘claims’ for a few years. His own brother attends the yearly family reunions of the black McCain’s.
William Alexander McCain, great great grandfather to John, owned 120 slaves (Or, as John McCain says, ‘sharecroppers‘.) aged 6 months to 60 years old. (I wonder how much a 6 MONTH OLD sharecropper gets paid…and what does their job entail? )
William Alexander was also a soldier in the Civil War. John says he knew the family had a plantation, he knew his gr-gr grandfather was a Civil War Soldier and he had ‘sharecroppers’….then a week or so ago, he put two and two together, ‘maybe the sharecroppers were descendants of slaves’. Ummmm, John?
John always has focused on his genealogy….his military genealogy. Odd that the whole, “we owned slaves” thing never ‘showed up’. Being into genealogy myself, I can tell you that would be found quite easily. Especially since the work on the black side had already been completed. What seems even more odd to me is the fact that John’s brother, Joe (no…not the plumber) ATTENDED several YEARLY family reunions with the black McCains. So how does he not know this curious information until a reporter brings it up only a week ago?
If you’re interested in the story itself, here’s the link to the Wall Street Journal article.
October 20th, 2008 on 7:29 pm
Well, I know from personal experience that not everyone in my mother’s family is aware of their history – that they had owned slaves while living in West Virginia. Even some of my mother’s sisters were unaware that their grandfather had been a white supremest – both facts that I knew from research.
No one is ever happy or proud to find out these ugly family secrets.
October 20th, 2008 on 7:55 pm
Hey Sheila, the other Sheila here!
I agree, no one is happy/proud of ugly family secrets. It just strikes me as odd that when asked he always said undeniably ‘no’, and as it turns out he did know. And his own ‘white’ family must have gave him details over the years of their visits at ‘black’ reunions.
Not to mention the ‘black’ McCains wrote personally to him over the years with no response. I can understand the shame he must feel for his ancestors ownership, but I think he’s missed a wonderful opportunity to embrace his history.