The Idea of a Black President in American Culture
Until the recent inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of the United States, the nation’s highest office has been reserved for white men. The idea of a black president has been so unthinkable to most Americans that, for much of our nation’s past, it has been relegated to rare comedic or fantastic explorations in the popular culture. Only over the last half century has that begun to change.
Throughout most of American history, the idea of a black president has been a subject fit only for satire. One prominent Hollywood example of this tendency is Rufus Jones for President (1933), a short musical comedy about a young African American boy, played by seven-year-old Sammy Davis, Jr., who dreams that he is elected president. The film portrays the subject in hilarious fashion, replete with a variety of offensive racial stereotypes, including African Americans eating chicken, stealing watermelons, and shooting craps. Over the past five decades, African American comedians have viewed the idea as being equally absurd, though highlighting the racism of many whites as the reason. Dick Gregory, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, and Dave Chappelle have made it the subject of their standup routines and comedy skits. Chappelle even suggested in one monologue that the first black president would prove so offensive to whites that he would need to select a Mexican vice president to stave off assassination or impeachment.
In the two major works of fiction to explore the subject in the twentieth century, the authors devised creative plot twists to work around the implausibility of an African American ascending to the presidency. The first of these, The Black President (1926) by prominent Brazilian writer Monteiro Lobato, was penned while he was living in the United States. Set in 2228, the novel recounts a fictional U.S. presidential campaign between three candidates—a conservative white male, a white female, and a black male named Jim Roy. Late in the campaign, Roy surges ahead and is elected the nation’s eighty-eighth president (doubling Obama’s actual number). He is found dead, however, the morning that he is to take office. By setting the story in the distant future, having the black candidate win in a three-way race, and arranging for his assassination before he is inaugurated, Lobato made the idea of a black president more plausible. Nevertheless, while the novel was published in Portuguese and is a cult classic in Brazil, he failed in his attempts to find an American publisher....
Read entire article at Roy E. Finkenbine in the OAH Newsletter
Throughout most of American history, the idea of a black president has been a subject fit only for satire. One prominent Hollywood example of this tendency is Rufus Jones for President (1933), a short musical comedy about a young African American boy, played by seven-year-old Sammy Davis, Jr., who dreams that he is elected president. The film portrays the subject in hilarious fashion, replete with a variety of offensive racial stereotypes, including African Americans eating chicken, stealing watermelons, and shooting craps. Over the past five decades, African American comedians have viewed the idea as being equally absurd, though highlighting the racism of many whites as the reason. Dick Gregory, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, and Dave Chappelle have made it the subject of their standup routines and comedy skits. Chappelle even suggested in one monologue that the first black president would prove so offensive to whites that he would need to select a Mexican vice president to stave off assassination or impeachment.
In the two major works of fiction to explore the subject in the twentieth century, the authors devised creative plot twists to work around the implausibility of an African American ascending to the presidency. The first of these, The Black President (1926) by prominent Brazilian writer Monteiro Lobato, was penned while he was living in the United States. Set in 2228, the novel recounts a fictional U.S. presidential campaign between three candidates—a conservative white male, a white female, and a black male named Jim Roy. Late in the campaign, Roy surges ahead and is elected the nation’s eighty-eighth president (doubling Obama’s actual number). He is found dead, however, the morning that he is to take office. By setting the story in the distant future, having the black candidate win in a three-way race, and arranging for his assassination before he is inaugurated, Lobato made the idea of a black president more plausible. Nevertheless, while the novel was published in Portuguese and is a cult classic in Brazil, he failed in his attempts to find an American publisher....