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Actually there is good reason to believe Harding had black lineage. I read the book "Florence Harding:The first lady The jazz age and the death of America's most scandalous President" written by Carl Anthony a very good book.

Apparently he was considered to have black ancestry by many of the people in his town. Even his own step father (hiding his own Jewish forebears) would have nothing to do with him because he considered him black, even campaigning against him in elections because of that reason. The author did however, try to get to the bottom of his ancestry but found it all very nebulous and difficult to document (which probably tells the tale).

Most of the information dealing with his death presented by the web master on this site appears to be hogwash. Harding certainly died of a heart attack based on the information in the book.

One of the intriguing things about this book is that there are a lot of parallels to Clinton. There was a mysterious suicide, both were called the first black President, had tremendous appeal among backs for no real reasons. Both had strong wives, Both had scandals in their back ground (hardings was the sale of his newspaper when he became President for an inflated price) and in his Presidency. Both had Interior Secretary's accused of selling interior Dept concessions. Clinton's byzantine Arkansas gang corresponds nicely to Harding's Ohio gang. Both were Presidents during time of economic boom, which helped make them popular. For those who think Clinton was a good President because the economy expanded during his administration, can be corrected by pointing out that if this were the hall mark of a good President. Then he was the best President since Harding and Coolidge. There were a lot of other parallels and might very easily show what Clinton's legacy will be like.