There was a period when things got pretty hot in the Civil Rights movement and a number of overenthusiastic black militants—including Dick Gregory—got a little too adamant about who was black and who wasn't. For example, someone claimed that all the great classical musicians, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, etc. were black. Most of the world's scientists and inventors, the claim went, where also black. And they set up a howl over Elizabeth Taylor's portraying of Cleopatra in the movie of the same name, claiming that Cleopatra was Egyptian—African—hence, black.

Small problem there. Cleopatra was a member of the Ptolemy family and the Ptolemy family was Greek. And most of the rulers of Egypt from Alexander the Great (who founded the city of Alexandria), until the Roman Empire took over, where of Greek ancestry.

Also, the same claim was made about several of the more prominent U. S. Presidents. So the subject of this thread is pretty old stuff.

Actually, there was a Mudcat thread some time ago in which someone claimed that a black man had invented the guitar sometime in the 1800s. But there were waisted instruments called "gitarras" as far back as the 1200s. Then the 4-course Renaissance guitar and the 5-course Baroque guitar before the modern guitar with six single strings appeared in the late 1700, early 1800s.

I've seen a continuing series on PBS about tracing peoples' genealogy, and it turns out that an incredible number of black people have white ancestors—AND an incredible number of white people, Europeans and Americans, have black ancestry.

So—what's the big kerfuffle?

Other than that Obama is a Democrat and that his black ancestry is a bit more obvious. Which some people can't stand.

Don Firth