JohnTylerofVirginia

10thPresident,1841-1845

THERECORD:Tylersetaprecedentbybecomingthefirst vicepresidenttosucceedtothepresidencyuponthedeath ofhispredecessor HewasyourtypicalSouthernslave owner;noonetook“HisAccidency”seriously,andhewas notnominatedbytheWhigsin1844 Heeventuallyhelped VirginiasecedefromtheUnionin1860andwaselectedto theConfederateHouseofRepresentativesbutdiedin1862 beforetakingoffice

39

Zachary Taylor of Virginia 12th President, 1849-1850

THE RECORD: Taylor, a lifelong soldier, was a contradiction. He was a Mexican-American War hero yet opposed westward expansion. Taylor owned 200 slaves on two plantations in Kentucky and Mississippi yet advocated for inclusion of the Western territories as free states. The president died in 1850 shortly before he could see California admitted as a free state.

40 Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey

27th President 1913-1921

41 Andrew Johnson of Tennessee

17th President 1865-1869

WHY HE SUCKS: From the standpoint of race relations, there really is nothing good to say about Wilson, perhaps the most overtly racist president since Andrew Johnson. It was under Wilson’s administration that the true effects of Jim Crow were felt among blacks, as he introduced stricter segregationist laws at the federal level, especially in employment. His favorite movie—the racist The Birth of a Nation (1915)—spawned race riots nationwide and a rejuvenation of the Ku Klux Klan. Lynchings of blacks soared. Black soldiers in World War I faced intense racism both in uniform abroad and stateside.

WHY HE SUCKS: Johnson was history’s bad accident. A racist Southern Democrat, he was placed on President Lincoln’s ticket in 1864 to win the non-Republican vote. Lincoln’s assassination elevated Johnson to the White House. He did not view blacks as his equal, sought to deprive them of their civil liberties in the readmitted Southern states (setting the pattern for Jim Crow), and opposed passage of the 14th Amendment abolishing slavery, which led directly to his impeachment in 1868 (he was acquitted in the Senate), the first ever of a sitting president. The Ku Klux Klan was founded during his presidency.

42

Rutherford Birchard Hayes of Ohio

19th President

1877-1881

Andrew

43

7th President

1865-1869

WHY HE SUCKS: It was the 1876 election that cemented Hayes’ place as one of the worst presidents on race. In order to defeat his Democratic opponent, New York Governor Samuel J. Tilden, in the Electoral College (Tilden had won the popular vote), the Republican agreed to a disgraceful bargain: accept the votes of racist Southern electors in exchange for removing federal troops from the South, thus ending Reconstruction and consigning blacks to almost 100 years of Southern apartheid.

44

Donald John Trump of New York*

45th President

2017-2021

WHY HE SUCKS: Jackson hypocritically considered himself a “compassionate” slave owner and claimed to treat his 300 enslaved Africans favorably yet mercilessly beat them when they ran away and were recaptured. He sent federal troops to put down Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831 and called abolitionists “monsters” and actively fought to crush their movement. His Indian Removal Act is among history’s most notorious instances of genocide.

WHY HE SUCKS: Trump, considered by many historians and political pundits to be among history’s great demagogues, began a political movement in 2015 called Make America Great Again (MAGA), which embraced all of the worst elements in U.S. history: racism, misogyny, xenophobia, antiSemitism and authoritarianism. Surprisingly, it propelled him to the White House. Thoroughly corrupt, selfish, greedy and amoral, The Donald’s singular term embraced racism on steroids. He claimed to “love” his lone African American supporter, thought blacks were so bad off that they had nothing to lose by voting for him (when in fact they had everything to lose), appointed an obsequious brain surgeon as his lone black Cabinet secretary (of HUD, of all places), and claimed his 2020 re-election defeat was fraudulent because black voters in big cities “cheated.” Trump capped his ignominious political career by attempting a failed coup of the U.S. government on January 6, 2021, in a bid to remain in office. His legacy is a brainwashed cult following equipped by right-wing media with its own set of bogus “alternative facts.”

NOT RANKED, BUT…

A PROMISING START: Too soon to fully evaluate a presidency in progress, but Joe Biden ran on a winning ticket with Kamala Harris, the first black woman to serve as vice president, appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first black female Supreme Court associate justice, and selected Lloyd Austin as the first black secretary of defense. He also eliminated crushing student loan debt for millions of black and minority college graduates and pardoned federal marijuana offenders.