The "Real" First Black President and Other Things Learned in Line for Obama

We already mentioned the scene outside the Obama rally yesterday and that people were understandably frustrated, but really there's nothing wrong with being forced to congregate with your fellow man for a few hours. I learned lots of things, like that apparently Barack Obama won't be our first black President.

A Rastafarian man was wondering about the crowd with a towel on a hanger full of hand made pins and necklaces for sale featuring portraits of African-America leaders: MLK Jr, Malcolm X, Obama and John Hanson -- apparently not only the first Black president, but the first President of the United States.

What was this? We never covered Hanson in AP US History! What kind of conspiracy theory were History teachers running?

When I got back home, I googled Hanson. Apparently there was a John Hanson, and some people consider him the first President of the United States. He was the first President of the United States in Congress Assembled to serve a full term after the Articles of Confederation were ratified. The office of President as we know it today wasn't established until we adopted the Constitution in 1788, and of course Ole Wood Teeth, George Washington, was the first person to serve in that position. The President of the United States in Congress Assembled was a position akin to Speaker of the House, and under the Articles of Confederation we had no executive branch.

So, was he black? Nope. History doesn't know much about him, but they're pretty sure he was vanilla. There was an African John Hanson, the man in the picture on the pin, but he was a Liberian Senator. Some how they got mixed up.

The more you know!

Oh, and the titular other things I learned:

-Palin and McCain may call Obama "Socialistic", but he sure inspires a lot of capitalism. Besides the pins, people were selling everything from Obama rally towels, to T-shirts, to Stickers, to hats.
-Apparently the families of disabled folks aren't happy about the Handicapped seating policies in Dolphin Stadium.
-No hard feelings about Hillary. Everything I heard or overheard about her was positive, and in fact I even got a flyer touting mail order Obama shirts with Hillarys head photo shopped on one of the models.

--Kyle Munzenrieder