"Obama's NOT the first black President"

From The Daily Mail:

It would seem that Newsweek’s latest cover showing President Obama wearing a baseball cap sideways and gold chains declaring him ‘The First Black President’ is not merely attention-grabbing but historically inaccurate too.

Critics and history buffs, quick to scorn the sensationalist cover, have pointed out that James Buchanan was likely the first black President more than a century ago. Rumours about Buchanan’s racial origin have circulated with historians determining that the fifteenth leader of the U.S was an Afro-American – and that the nation knew it.

"There can be no doubt that James Buchanan was black, before, during and after his four years in the White House. Moreover, the nation knew it, too." historian Jim Loewen wrote on History News Network in response to the news magazine’s daring cover.

Loewen points to a letter that Buchanan wrote to Mrs Roosevelt on May 13, 1844. In the missive Buchanan describes his loneliness after the local spicy chicken restaurant closed down.

Buchanan wrote: "I am now 'solitary and alone,' having no companions with whom to play dominoes and listen to 16-bar blues played on the unaccompanied and slightly-out-of-tune piano. I have gone a-visiting several other establishments, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for a brother to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old honky who can nurse me when I am sick; provide nourishing but extremely bland dinners for me when I am well; and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection for her scrawny white ass."

Buchanan, who was in the White House from 1857 to 1861, was the only president who started life as a cotton picker.