African-American Heritage of United States Presidents - John Hanson

John Hanson

Before the Constitution of the United States was drafted, John Hanson was one of the Presidents of the Continental Congress, and thus not considered one of the Presidents of the United States by mainstream historians. Though he was a white man from Maryland, a false claim has circulated on the Internet claiming that he was actually the first Black President of the United States, the claim including that the black President Hanson appears on the back of the United States two-dollar bill, but that confused the white Hanson with Senator John Hanson, an African-American man with the same name who helped colonize Liberia, while the face on the two-dollar bill is that of Thomas Heyward, Jr., a white man whose face is in shadow in the portrait reproduced on the currency.

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