PART I UNCOVERING HISTORY
1
PRESIDENT IN THE FAMILY
SHANNON LaNIER
âSIT DOWN AND stop telling lies!â
Those were the words asserted by my first-grade teacher when I told the class that âPresident Thomas Jefferson is my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.â We were studying U.S. presidents, so I was excited to share the information that I had been hearing in my family my whole life. At seven years old, I didnât understand the complexity of what I was saying or why someone wouldnât believe it. This was not âfake news.â It was my familyâs legacyâthe oral history that had been passed down to my brother Shawn and me as a matter of fact. Luckily, my mother, Priscilla, whose family line (on her fatherâs side) makes the Jefferson link, went to my school the next day and told the teacher who had berated me, âMy son is a ninth generation descendant of Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings, and donât tell him differently!â
From that day on, I think I realized that not everyone would believe the story of my heritage. Not even some of my close friends would believe me at first. Their responses were usually, âYeah, right, and Iâm related to Abraham Lincoln.â After so much criticism and disbelief about my connection to Jefferson, I stopped telling people about it. I knew who I was and didnât need to prove it to anyone. As my mom always said, âBe strong in the belief of who you are and donât let other people define you.â I still practice that lesson to this day.
Fast forward thirty-one years, and Iâm now coauthor (with photojournalist Jane Feldman) of the book Jeffersonâs Children: The Story of One American Family. The Jefferson-Hemings relationship has been validated by researchers like Annette Gordon Reid, with the help of DNA samples, and it has been accepted as fact by countless sources, including the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which runs Jeffersonâs home and museum, Monticello. The family was even featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, and the list goes on. There is still a faction, however, that claims that a relative of Jefferson was the one to father some of Sally Hemingsâs children. Iâm pretty sure, that today, my first-grade teacher would not challenge me.
Although my family story is more widely accepted now than ever before, wrapping our minds around all of the complexities in this family, as well as in other families touched by slavery, can be challenging. This is one reason that Jefferson/Hemings family members came together to help start the organization Coming to the Table (CTTT). When my cousin Shay Banks-Young, who we call Mama Shay, told me that the descendants of slaves and the descendants of slaveowners were coming together at the âtable of brotherhoodâ to break bread and to discuss in depth our countryâs complicated past and its connections to our personal families, I knew I had to be involved. However, I had no idea what to expect. Iâm not even sure if the organization had a mission statement at that point or if they just knew they had a novel idea. Either way, the concept was enough to catch my attention. It sounded like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.âs dream was being realized, and I wanted a seat at the table.
Not only was I not going to miss the opportunity to participate, but I also didnât want to miss the opportunity to document the experience. So, my wife Chandra and I asked for permission to film the conference for historical documentation and for CTTT to use to inspire others and to uncover future opportunities.
At that first CTTT gathering at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia, a small and diverse group talked about the pain, anger, and guilt, along with the barrage of other feelings that were surfacing upon our discovery that we were descendants of slaves or slave masters. In some cases, like mine and that of a few of my cousins, we had to deal with the thought of being a descendant of both slave and slave master.
For some, it was the first time they had heard others talk about how they were dealing with the news and what it meant for them. While this may not have been the first time the black people in the room had talked about their views on slavery and its effects on our families, it may have been the first time they shared these thoughts and feelings with white people. It also seemed to be the first time many of the white people faced confronting and sharing their feelings about the issue. I remember thinking that the whole exchange was very brave. It was a vulnerable situation, and it was refreshing to see people willing to have in-depth conversations about a topic that most would never touch but that we all knew needed to be talked about. It was a truly enlightening experience. I often say that in order to let go of the anger, pain, and resentment we feel about slavery, we have to talk about it and go through the healing process, and CTTT allowed that outlet.
One experience especially sticks out in my mind. In one of our sessions with the entire group, my cousin Mama Shay said she wanted to tell everyone a story. She wanted everyone to have a better picture of what African people went through when they took that two- to three-month journey to a new land to be broken into slaves.
âClose your eyes and clear your mind,â she said. Then she proceeded to narrate the highlights of that slave voyage to the new land. She led us through the kidnapping, the deplorable living conditions, the murder, rape, physical abuse, and dehumanization. When she finished, there was not a dry eye left in the house. It was an experience many had never even thought about, let alone been âtransportedâ to.
Not only was Mama Shayâs slave journey powerful and impactful, but it was also a learning experience. While some appreciated that glimpse into the reality of slavery, some were upset that she had caught them off guard and had subjected them to such a horrible and graphic experience without a warning or disclaimer. Mama Shay used these insights to open up a discussion about how slaves also never got a warning or disclaimer before being ripped from their families and having their lives disrupted and violated.
That discussion is a perfect example of whatâs great about the CTTT organization. It forces us out of our comfort zones but doesnât leave us faltering in unknown territory. For it is outside our comfort zones where the real work beginsâwork that can lead to deeper understanding, healing, and, in many cases, reconciliation.
I felt that those who participated in that first year of CTTT opened up and saw the world differently; or, at least, I saw them differently. I saw white people apologize for the injustices of their ancestors, and I saw black people accept those apologies, embracing and reassuring the slaveownersâ descendants that what happened more than two hundred years ago wasnât their fault. In fact, we acknowledged that while the people in the room were not to blame for the past, they could be thanked for being part of the solutionâby being involved in those important and difficult conversations. It seemed as if we were embarking on a new movement that had the capability of spreading to communities throughout the country.
That first year especially, the ideas behind CTTT really called for people who were open to understanding and accepting others and to extending forgiveness. Today, it still calls for such people. CTTT acts as a catalyst for those hard discussions over race relations, history, and healing, and those willing to go through such uncomfortable conversations and feelings, both personally and communally, grow into better people for a greater cause. After all, the only way we are going to grow and someday be a unified nation, is to start talking about our painful past.
The CTTT organization and conference is one of those deep and life-changing experiences that you may have to go through to truly understand, but once you do, you will not be sorry. And you certainly wonât be the same.
2
SO MANY NAMES
A. B. WESTRICK
IN THE FALL of 2015 while researching Richmond, Virginia, as the setting for a novel, I came across a book by Benjamin Campbell titled Richmondâs Unhealed History.1 I was devouring the text, underlining and highlighting passages, totally absorbed in Campbellâs presentation, when I hit a section about Virginiaâs House of Burgesses and stopped cold. I say that âI hit a section,â but the effect was more like the section hit me. Here before me was colonial history I hadnât learned. How could I have missed it? How could American textbooks have left it out?
Iâm descended from a number of men who served in Virginiaâs House of Burgesses. Aunt Margaret had played the role of family historian and instilled in all of usâcousins, aunts, uncles, anyone whoâd listenâa tremendous sense of pride in our family tree. Textbooks describe our ancestors with words like courageous, for having fought off âIndians,â and bold for having established a government âof the people, by the people, and for the people.â Our ancestors forged a nation that would become great by virtue of its principles, such as âall are created equal.â They were strong leaders and articulate speakers, greatly respected and admired.
But in Richmondâs Unhealed History, the author doesnât gush with admiration over these men. Instead, he sheds light on some of the legislative accomplishments of the House of Burgessesâspecifically, on laws having to do with slavery. These were laws I hadnât heard about, or if I had, Iâd forgotten. They certainly hadnât been emphasized when I was in school.
I blog regularly, and a few years before reading Richmondâs Unhealed History, I happened to mention in a post that my ancestors had enslaved Africans. Aunt Margaret hadnât ever said as much, but Iâd figured it out through deductive reasoning: If textbooks presented Thomas Jefferson as a reluctant participant in the institution of slavery, and if Jefferson was the first cousin of my direct ancestor, then mine had to have been an enslaver too. The blog post in reference was on a different topic (slaveholding was an aside), but the line about slavery clearly hit a nerve.
Three thousand miles away, a close relative read my post and shot me an email with the subject line, â2Much Information!â He wrote that it was inexcusable for me to blog about the family, adding, âI do not think that our family history of owning slaves, if indeed true, as which is very new-news to me, needs to be in the public domain.â He thought I should âbecome more appreciativeâ of our relatives, and he asked me to take down the post.
While he didnât use the word shame, I imagine he felt it. Or he felt embarrassed or wronged or somethingâIâm not sure what. But I realized that if I was going to put information like this out into the world, I would need proof; deductive reasoning wasnât good enough. But proof would require ...