Word: jefferson
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...what began as an extended-family reunion has disintegrated into a bitter family feud between Jefferson's white family and his black one. For the first time since the DNA results came out, not a single Hemings attended the association's annual reunion this past May. "Nobody wants to be where they aren't wanted. The environment felt stuffy and very formal," says Shannon Lanier, a Hemings who works as a TV production assistant in New York City and co-authored a book about the family called Jefferson's Children: The Story of One American Family. Instead, last year...
...racism. After all, a primary reason the Hemings liaison was widely doubted before the DNA results were published was that testimony from former black slaves was dismissed by white historians as unreliable gossip. Blacks were not the only ones who supported the story, however. Numerous white journalists in Jefferson's time reported the story and believed it to be true. Jefferson's fellow Founding Father John Adams, who had seen Hemings' beauty firsthand (she was known as "Dashing Sally"), also seemed to believe that Jefferson had had an affair with her and called it a "natural and almost unavoidable consequence...
According to the Constitution of the Monticello Association, founded in 1913, one of its missions is "to protect and perpetuate the reputation and fame of Thomas Jefferson." Patrilineal pride runs high. Matthew Mackay-Smith, 71, a retired horse doctor from White Post, Va., who attended this year's reunion wearing a bright red tie imprinted with Jefferson's signature, declares, "I've never shied away from acknowledging and treasuring my connection to the great man." Nat Abeles, a former president of the group, says he proposed to his wife Paulie at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington...
Several members of the association have become empathetic with the other side of the family. John Works' brother David Works is one of those converts. An eighth-generation descendant of Jefferson, he says of the connection, "I bragged about it as a kid." When the Hemings first showed up at an association meeting, in 1999, "I was really turned off by the press and what I perceived to be the Hemings' really pushy approach. We just gave them ugly looks and were generally surly and mean," says the computer-systems administrator from Denver. "Because of the nastiness of the fight...
...explore the matter more deeply, John works helped form a separate organization called the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, which commissioned a study by 13 university scholars to assess the likelihood that Thomas Jefferson fathered Hemings' children. In 2001 the group concluded, by a vote of 12 to 1, that his parentage was unlikely. One author of the study, Professor Lance Banning of the University of Kentucky, says, "The case for his paternity is not without its chinks and limitations...