The Legacy of Slavery in America's Political Elite.

A Reuters examination found that a fifth of the US political elite, including a quarter of the Senate, are direct descendants of ancestors who enslaved Black people. President Joe Biden and every living former US president, except Donald Trump, are also direct descendants of slaveholders. The Reuters research was vetted by board-certified genealogists, who reviewed each case linking a contemporary leader to a slaveholding ancestor. The new insights into the political elite’s ancestral links to slavery come at a time of renewed and intense debate about the meaning of the institution’s legacy and what, if anything, lawmakers should do about it.