Jim Roy, 1926 U.S. First African American President

By Charles Mombo

José Bento Monteiro Lobato

During a recent visit to Brazil, my ignorance was exposed when I commented to a tour guard that the people gathered at Chicago’s Grant Park had nothing on the people of São Paulo, Brazil. I had wrongly assumed that the overwhelming Obama’s craze sweeping Brazil was due to the fact that it has the largest population of black origin outside of Africa and that they were excited because America had just elected its first Black president.

I quickly realized that the Obama’s craze was partly due to a book by José Bento Monteiro Lobato that was published in 1926. “The Black President”, or “O Presidente Negro.” is a scary book. Frightening in many ways. Mostly, by the strikingly familiar characters in the book as they relate to the recent 2008 U.S. election.

In his 1926 book, Monteiro Lobato tells the story of Jim Roy, a brilliant and charismatic African American candidate who was elected America’s first black president in the year 2228. Jim Roy ran against two white candidates, a white male candidate, Kerlog and a white female candidate, Evelyn Astor. A split had occurred in the white race, between the two white candidates, Kerlog and Evelyn Astor.

In his book, Monteiro Lobato noted that the white female candidate, Evelyn Astor had the victory almost guaranteed, but then the black candidate, Jim Roy surges and ends up being elected President.

The story however had a tragic and sad ending. On the morning of the inauguration, Roy was found dead in his

The Black President – Published 1926

office. Lobato hints at murder. Kerlog calls for a re-election and emerges victorious. White leaders then mastermind the end of the black race in America, using a senseless and tragic sterilization technique, and Roy’s dream of serving as the first black man in the nation’s most powerful post is left by the wayside.

Who was José Bento Monteiro Lobato?

Born on April 18, 1882, in Taubaté, state of São Paulo, Monteiro Lobato (aka The Brazilian Nostradamus) was the most important Brazilian writer of children’s books during his time. In an unusual switch from writing children books, Lobato wrote his only adult book or science fiction book. Lobato was also an influential journalist and publisher and wrote regularly for several newspapers and magazines, and was a noted and respected art critic.
Beside Monteiro Lobato’s U.S. black president prediction, he also anticipates globalization, Internet, and economic growth in China.

Lobato was really a man ahead of his time, and paid dearly for this, being ridiculed by part of the public and even arrested by the government. His ideas included:

English should be taught at schools because it was more important than French or Latin.
Ores and Oil should be managed by the state to prevent their control by international corporations not interested in developing Brazil but in keeping it as consumer market.
The Brazilian folk traditions were the cornerstone of national identity, they should be preserved and more cherished.
The world was changing fast and those who could not adapt to its pace would end up being "eaten".
That scientific research could eventually enable man to make deeper changes to nature, and that such changes, if not wisely directed, could result in disasters.
That war exists only because of corporate greed, political alienation of the masses and racial prejudice.