In episode seven of the Founding Fathers' Legacy Series, Former Washington D.C Mayor Sharon Pratt speaks with Gayle Jessup White to examine Thomas Jefferson's legacy, his descendants and America’s complex racial history.
Gayle Jessup White is the Public Relations & Community Engagement Officer at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s legendary estate, and a direct descendant of Jefferson. She speaks with Sharon Pratt about her quest to research her connection to Thomas Jefferson after hearing stories passed down from her father's family that they were descendants of Thomas Jefferson.
Gayle Jessup White is also the author of "Reclamation: Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant's Search for Her Family's Lasting Legacy." The book chronicles her remarkable journey to understand and reclaim her heritage and ensure the nation lives up to the ideals advocated by her legendary ancestor.
Gayle Jessup White is the Public Relations & Community Engagement Officer at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s legendary estate, and a direct descendant of Jefferson. She speaks with Sharon Pratt about her quest to research her connection to Thomas Jefferson after hearing stories passed down from her father's family that they were descendants of Thomas Jefferson.
Gayle Jessup White is also the author of "Reclamation: Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant's Search for Her Family's Lasting Legacy." The book chronicles her remarkable journey to understand and reclaim her heritage and ensure the nation lives up to the ideals advocated by her legendary ancestor.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Hi. I'm Sharon Pratt, andI'm the founding director of the Institute of
Politics, Policy and History, alsoknown as IPH and IPPH is hosting a
series known as the Founding Father's LegacySeries, where we examined the three founding
fathers, Madison, Jefferson, andWashington, who were pivotal to establishing the
(00:30):
nation's capital in the South along thebanks of the Potomac now known as Washington,
DC. Today, we are examiningthe life of Thomas Jefferson and we're
very lucky, indeed to have withus Gail Jessup White. Gail Jessup White
(00:52):
is the author of the book Reclamation, which is her story, her family
story of their connection to Thomas Jefferson. Gail Jesseph White is the perfect person
to do this. She's a graduateof Howard University and Northwestern University. She
started her career as a journalist atThe New York Times and now she is
(01:15):
the public relations and community Engagement officerat Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. What a delight
to have you with us today,Gail. Welcome, may as you say,
make it Gail and Sharon today,Is that all right? Thank you
very much? Mayor. Sharon,Yes, that's it feels very comfortable.
(01:38):
It's a will honored to be herewith you today. Well, we're honored
and delighted. So reclamation. First, let me just say I so enjoyed
your book. I really enjoyed it. You're a good writer. You're a
very good writer. But the otherreason I enjoyed the book is that it
just was memory lane as somebody whogrew up in DC, because I also
(02:00):
and in Deanwood with suburban gardens beforemy mother died, where then I ended
up at Bloomingdale. But at anyrate, it was so it was just
moments and experiences that you had inWashington, and it was just wonderful to
go back or memory have that memoryLane experience because you capture it so well
(02:23):
and it's such a fascinating story.So we're going to talk about why on
earth you became so consumed with tryingto track down this rumor in the family,
so to speak, about how theJessips were connected to Thomas Jefferson.
What got grabbed your attention to thatextent. Well, so, Sharon,
(02:46):
consumed is the right word. Ibecame consumed from the moment I heard when
I was thirteen years old. Thereold history that our families descended from Thomas
Jefferson. Now this would have beenway back in the nineteenth evidence. I
heard the story from my oldest sister, Jan is twenty years older than I
was. In conversation with my dad. My sister was describing to him an
(03:09):
incident at the American embassy in Psigonwhere her husband was covering for Time magazine
the Vietnam War. Now, mysister and her husband were the guests of
honor at the American embassy, andthey were the only blacks there. This
would have been for them if we'retalking seventies from me, this would have
been late sixties for them. Andmy sister says, the guests are discussing
(03:30):
their heritage, the white guests,as if they were descended from royalty,
if they were descended from the verypeople that America had fought to win our
freedom. And she took great offenseto this. So my sister looks at
(03:50):
her husband and he gives her anod because he knows what's coming. My
sister, who is still at eightyfive years old, my sister is still
very beautiful. She has a swarmlike neck because she rose to her greatest
height, and she said to thegroup assembled, I'm descended from Thomas Jefferson.
Well, this is at a timewhen it had just become legal for
(04:12):
interracial marriage, so you can imaginewhat the reaction was in that room.
My sister said, the room wentdead, silent, and the silver touching.
This is the story I heard whenI was thirteen years old, and
I was flabbergasted. Growing up inWashington, DC, a majority black city,
a city that had great pride andits connections there, and being black
(04:36):
in its blackness and its command ofthat city, I was shocked. Now
there was some evidence right before me, right in front of me and my
dad. My dad was six two, freckle faced, red hair, and
I would learn, after priding himmuch pride to him, that his mother
(05:00):
was from Charlottesville. So I neededto make sense of how my white looking
dad could be related to the thirdPresident of the United States. Because we've
been taught not that Jefferson had ownedpeople. We had been taught that Jefferson
in fact was the beacon of freedom, having written the Declaration of Independence.
(05:21):
Now I mentioned that my dad lookedwhite because it's relevant in that he was
black but he looked white because that'swhat happened to our race. That's what
happened to our ancestors. They weremany women, were raped and exploited,
(05:42):
and the result was a person wholooked like my dad, which put me
closer to believing the story that wewere related to Jefferson because of the resemblance.
I could see it in him.Jefferson was tall, had freckles and
red hair. And for those whodon't know what our third president looked like,
so yes, consumed, obsessed,directed, guided, and I believe
(06:06):
by the aunt just to this storywhich ultimately brought me to Monticella. And
you had an aunt also who madethis assertion? Is that that so well?
So to me? A part ofwhat's remarkable about this story is that
it was kind of a family secret. No one talked about it. That's
why I was thirteen before I heardit, and that's why it was only
(06:26):
because I was eavesdropping in the conversationthat Jan was having with Dad that I
even learned about this history. Andthe only reason my sister knew about this
history was because she heard it frommy grandmother's half sister. It's on my
grandmother's side that we had this relationship. My grandmother's half sister was a woman
that we called Aunt Peachy. AuntPeachy was a domestic. She could not
(06:47):
read, write our spell her ownname. I never met her, but
Janis knew her. And remember Janisis twenty years older than I and our
Peachie's to live with us. Andour Peachy would say that jan constantly your
descent from Thomas Jefferson, I'm notfor you are because she was my grandmother's
half sister, and my sister heldon to that, and she rose to
(07:08):
the occasion, literally rose to theoccasion at that table in Psaigon when she
made the announcement, I'm descended fromThomas Jefferson. And that's how we heard
about it. Most of my dad'sfamily died, so there was only one
person left to carry that story on, and that was on Peachi. So,
Sharon, I would like to elevateI'd like to take this moment to
(07:30):
elevate Peachi and our ancestors like her, who were limited in their exposure,
limited what they could learn, butwho carried with them stories of families that
were so important and so essential towho we are. So much of our
history is undocumented, so we canonly learn it by listening. I always
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encourage people to listen to their elders, of which of whom I should say,
I am one now, because wehold these stories. For so many
of us, it's the only waywe know our history. So I elevate
Aunt Peachy. I've dedicated my bookto Aunt Peachy because without her, you
and I would not be having thisconversation right now. So when you spoke
(08:16):
to your father about it, howdid you respond to it? I mean,
I read the book, but Iwant our audience to know. Of
course. Of course, Well,my dad, who kept his own counsel,
did not like to talk about hisheritage. My dad was a very
proud black man who resented the wayhe looked because he knew that someone in
his family had been compromised a woman, and his family had been exploited for
(08:41):
him to have the appearance of awhite man. He didn't want to talk
about it, so his response wassimply Initially, his response was, that's
what they say. That's all Dadsaid. Well, so I was kind
of a the youngest. I wasthe youngest, and I dare say Dad's
favorite, and I had pushed himprey spent many many a Sunday with him
watching the team we used to callthe Redskins play football, and many many
(09:05):
a Monday night football watching the gamewith him and learning about the game and
getting as close as I could tomy dad, And as a result,
he began to open up to me, and he started telling me about his
family, about old Washington, dc. About his losses, about his
five sisters who died from tuberculosis,about the mother he never knew because she
(09:26):
died when he was five years old, and how painful it was for him.
And that added to my commitment tomy need to know what happened to
his family, to my desire tobring to my dad some sort of solace
by finding his family, by findingthis Jefferson connection. I wanted my dad
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to feel proud of his family,not only of his blackness, but of
the people who made him who hewas. And so I pushed Dad until
he was able to tell me asmuch as he could about his family,
and that ultimately led me to aconversation with his brother, who was the
(10:11):
only person who survived what I callthe holocaust of the loss in his family.
If you can imagine the devastation oflosing five girls, all five girls
and his mother, so the twoboys were the only ones to survive.
My uncle was the older and heremembered a lot more than my dad did.
(10:33):
And my uncle also held two bibles. One belonged to the Jessup family
and one belonged to the Robinson family, the Robinson Taylor family, my grandmother
Robinson Taylor, and he bequeathed thatbible to me, which is today my
prize possession. It's dated eighteen twentyone and it has the initials gosh right
(10:54):
now. The initial TEA on itis what I can recall at the moment,
T. I would learn through throughthank you. How do you remember
that? Not? Don't just readthe book. I just said it was
my first possession. I couldn't rememberthe initials on it, but yes,
(11:15):
thank you, the initials DT.It would be literally decades later that I've
learned that that T represented Taylor.I'm going to digress for a minute.
I said that my grandmother's name wasRobinson and Taylor Robinson was her official name,
was the name on her official documents, the census records, her death
(11:39):
certificate, and Jessip of course,as she and my grandfather were married,
but Taylor Taylor was the name thatshe used on sacred documents. So on
my dad's baptismal certificate, for example, it says Taylor. What I learned
after years and years of research wasthat Taylor was the name of one of
(12:00):
Jefferson's great great grandsons, and hisname was Monkia Robinson Taylor. And through
DNA I learned that my great grandfatherwas, in fact, that very man
Moncia Robinson Taylor, who later marriedat fifty. I think you have in
your books that he married at fifty, and he had and they didn't live
(12:22):
far apart, and she worked foror was it her mother worked for somebody
also in the Jefferson family. So, in fact, this Monkia Robinson Taylor,
my great grandfather, had relations witha woman named Rachel Robinson. My
great grandfather, right. Rachel Robinsonwas the daughter of a woman named Sally
(12:46):
Hemmonds Robinson. Salie Hemmons Robinson isnot to be mistaken with the famous Sally
Hemmings who was concubined to Thomas Jeffersonand who gave him six children. Sali
Hemmons Robinson was her niece, right, So that makes me a Jefferson through
one of his great great grandsons,and a Hemmings through a brother, Peter.
(13:09):
Peter was in fact Sally Hemmings's brotherand my three times great grandfather.
It's convoluted, but it's all therein a family tree, and it's all
supported by eural history, by DNA, and by documentation. And it's the
same kind of evidence that we haveto prove in fact that Sally Hemmings and
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Thomas Jefferson had relations. You see, that was debated for literally hundreds of
years whether Sally Hemmings and Jefferson hadchildren together. Well, in fact,
we have the earl history, wehave a DNA, and we have the
documentation that proves in fact the sixchildren she had were his and they had
the way was it the Richmond Gazette. I mean it was a story when
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he ran for president and then ranfor reelection. It was it was all
you know that it was a story. It would have to be a story.
Neighbors knew about it, everyone knewabout it. And a man named
James Calendar published it in I thinkof an eighteen oh one in a Richmond
newspaper, and in fact Jefferson hadJefferson kept a woman he called her Dusky
(14:18):
Sally, and that they had childrentogether. So it was known then,
and it was a political scandal thatJefferson, who was a brilliant manipulator and
a brilliant in many ways but infact a brilliant politician, managed to survive
all accusations. Scholars have contested itfor years, but the evidence is all
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there, just as it is formy family. The thing about my family
is that nobody knew. We didn'twe would have disappeared. Had it not
been again for Aunt Peachey carrying thatstory, we would have disappeared. But
my family is part of that history. And I should add the beautiful thing
about the descendants of Monticello is thatbecause Jefferson kept such copious notes, we
(15:03):
know a lot about our ancestors priorto emancipation in eighteen sixty five, in
that first sens in eighteen seventy.But our family is no different from the
millions of people who were enslaved.What we know about our family and Monticello
is as much a part of allthe descendants of the saved people. Because
that they were, their lives wouldhave been reflective of the lives that have
(15:26):
been written about from in Jefferson's notes. So when people he did not do
it very he was not. Imean what was a giveaway also was that
he didn't seemingly have as copious notesregarding Sally and you know, as he
did with other members of the thereon the estate. Well. So so
(15:50):
it's not that the middle toward auscopious, it's that there was nothing in
that information that would indicate that shehad a special relationship. Right, he
kept the same notes about her thathe would have but anybody else who was
who was his property. Is exactlyhe bought extra material for her, extra
cloth for her when they were livingin Paris together, or there would be
(16:14):
a reference to the children are whenSally had a baby, Sally Hemmings had
a babies, the same kind ofrecord he would have kept for everybody else.
Of course, with Sally Hemmy isthe difference is that we have their
own son, Madison, who gavea newspaper in Ohio in oral history a
memoir, and that's in fact partof the documentation that we have to indicate
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that there were children had by blackchildren had by Thomas Jefferson with Sally Hemmings.
Now okay, so, and thenSally's brothers, one of whom is
James, who is the chef,and and became a great fast, celebrated
chef. You know, Lisi inspireda great many celebrated chef. So he
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celebrated now. So he wasn't celebratedin his lifetime. He wasn't enslaved chef
who was in Paris with Jefferson whenhe was minister to France. Sally Hemmings
was in Paris as well as madeto two of his children, to his
two daughters. And it was inFrance that James learned the art of French
cookery. He brought that skill backto America with him, negotiated with Jefferson
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his freedom if he taught someone elsethat same art. The person he taught,
because it was expensive for James tolearn this skill in Paris. The
person he taught the art of Frenchcookery was in fact my three times great
grandfather, Peter, who was alsoa cook and mont Chella admired at that
time for his muffins, but infact not celebrating until today today in the
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current environment, we give James creditfor a we won't say inventing macaroni and
cheese, but enhancing macaroni and cheese. As I once said in the program
on Netflix called her in the Hogwhere my royalties exactly that that's a fact.
So tell me when you you alsoconnected with a white ancestor is it
(18:12):
who was in California as you didthe research around you know this connection at
Monticello because she was respected as oneof the first Virginia is it ancestors?
What is it f f V FirstFamilies of Virginia, First Families of Virginia
vast. Her name is Test Taylor, and Test Tailor helped provide the DNA
(18:34):
evidence. She's a poet and shepublished a book that I read about on
the internet, so I reached outto her. She got in touch and
me began a conversation together, andshe wrote we met. She came to
Monticello when we met, and shewrote about it in the New York Times
and after that was after that piecewas published, Marry Lewis Gates, incidentally
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a friend of my husband's but didn'trecognize my name at all, Reacheddon and
asked if we'd like to do aDNA test, and of course we agreed
and we did two tests and thematches were overwhelming to the Randolph Jefferson families.
Jefferson was in facted Randolph, andso tests did help provide the evidence
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that we are Jefferson descendants. Thething that's so funny is that this is,
well, it's funny to my familyanyway, to my sister and to
me. This is an oral historythat my sister and I believed for some
forty years that was unproven. Whenthe DNA test results were coming in,
my sister and I said, Okay, what's going to happen. If it's
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you know, five matches, whatdo we do Because we have believed all
these years and have said all theseyears and we're related to Thomas Jefferson exactly,
had no evidence at all. Somy sister says, Okay, that's
our story and we're sticking to it. Soliker sperit. Indeed, So as
it turned out, there the storythat rural history is in that room.
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So how was this reality received bythe first families of Virginia? How was
it received by Monticello? How isit? Because even now when I've talked
to historians, they referred to eventhe Hemmings relationship the Sally him as the
purported relationship even to this day,there's some historians who do well. So
(20:30):
for clarification, the first Families ofVirginia are those families that founded the colony
and that intermarried. Among them arenames such as Carter, Randolph Taylor,
all cousins all to somehow descendants ofmine. Who who are I'm want to
(20:52):
go back to couple called the Adamand Eve of Virginia, who are elevated
among the very elite among Virginia's families. Children such as my ancestors would have
been called the natural children of thesefounders, and the natural children, of
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course would have been enslaved and wouldnot have been given the recognition as members
of the so called first families ofVirginia. Right. So when you ask
how people how those descendants respond today, well, it kind of depends on
who they are. There's some peoplewho are open and are willing to have
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recognized in fact that these founders haverelations within saint women, that they raped
these women in fact, and thatwe are cousins as distant as we might
be. And there are others whodon't care to have this recognition at all
and consider themselves entitled to whatever FirstFamily of Virginia might mean at this point.
(22:02):
As far as Monicelloston's turn, well, Monicello has totally acknowledged our scholars
and acknowledged that their descendants of SallyHammans and Thomas Jefferson, that he fathered
six and her children, four ofwhom survived into adulthood, that those children
were freed at the age of twentyone. Her negotiations that Sally Hemmians had
(22:22):
with Jefferson when they were in Paristogether if she would come back with him,
because if she remained in Friends,she would have been free. If
she came back with him, shewould have privileges for herself and freedom for
their unborn children. And in fact, that was honored by his daughter,
Martha Jefferson Randolph after he died ineighteen twenty six, on July fourth,
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exactly fifty years after the signing ofthe Declaration of Independence. So the foundation
has been very supportive at Monicello.When people visit, they will see that
there is an exhibition called the Lifeof Sally Hammings totally dedicated to her,
not to her as an appendage ofJeffersons, but to her as a human
being, and as an individual whofor a moment in time, practiced her
(23:07):
own agency, a woman who wasa world traveler, a mother, a
daughter, and an emancipator because hersix children were freed some sixty years i
should say, decades before freedom fora four million enslaved African American people.
(23:32):
She is to be honored and admiredfor that. Right, Well, there
are many takeaways from your story,probably far too many for us to explore
today, but whether America can wrestlewith this reality acknowledge people of African descent
as anything other than invisible chattel tobe used, I mean, we know
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even to this day. And partof what I think I will speak to
is that what was established and Jeffersondidn't wasn't the author of it, but
he was certainly a complicit, intentionalagent of it, was a very significant
racial hierarchy in America where certain peoplewere forever to own and have economic political
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power and others were never to havepolitical and economic power. And to a
great extent, that hierarchy continues,which is why I think it is still
a challenge to really have true acceptanceof your family story. You know it
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was, it's still a point oftension in this country, because that would
be an acknowledgement that we were morethan chattel. We actually were active contributors
to the founding and evolution of America, and that's why we had what is
going on now, the culture wars. But I won't go off of my
(25:06):
tangent. It's just that it's sucha rich story, a story where you
had to engage in such an intenselevel of almost investigative reporting to get to
the bottom of it. But it'salso the political cultural fault line of this
country, even in twenty twenty three, and so one needs to spend many
(25:30):
sessions having conversations with you and otherswho were impacted, such as a friend
of ours. We talked about Rolaband Konda who his family were enslaved at
Mount Vernon, and of course JamesFrench is going to be joining us,
and his were at narn Barbersville rightnext to it, to Montpeliem. But
we have always been invisible in Americanhistory and remain invisible, and there are
(25:55):
some who insist that we should continueto be invisible because if we have the
truth, Heaven forbid, that mightupset some kids today. So I can't
thank you enough for being as determinedas you have been, for being able
to harvest this history and tell thisstory in a way that's so engaging and
(26:17):
compelling, and continuing your work atThomas Jefferson's Monticello so that it is all
of our Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Sothank you so much, Gail Jesseph White.
Thank you so much. Mea SharingPratt, is honored to be here
with you. I really enjoyed thisconversation. You're a marvelous, marvelous listener.
(26:38):
So thank you so much. GailJesseph White has been terrific. Her
story is so personal, and itallows us to get a sense of the
families that were always invisible, andto some extent, remain invisible except for
(27:03):
a few select personalities who managed topenetrate the space, such as Gail Jessup
White. There was always a connectionin many ways to Thomas Jefferson on the
part of Gail Jessup White's family,because she is also a descendant of Peter
(27:23):
Hemmings, who is the brother ofSally Hemmings, and it took forever for
America to recognize that indeed, ThomasJefferson had a long standing relationship with a
woman that was enslaved by him,and that was Sally Hemmings. He and
Sally Hemmings had many children. ButGail Jesseph White also speaks of another connection
(27:51):
her family has, and that wasto Thomas Jefferson's great great grandson as well
as his relationship with a Rachel Robinsonand how that impacted her life. So
it's been a rich story and itgives us a great insight into the complicated,
(28:14):
difficult relationships that have existed since theinception of this country, and particularly
in an environment where there was sucha determined, intentional commitment to a racial
hierarchy established for purposes of slavery inAmerica. This episode was edited by Baywulf
(28:41):
Rockland, Roosevelt Hine, and LisaHudy of Two Squared Media Productions. Special
thanks to Isabel Dorville for her researchand production support, Folk Diversity for ensuring
purposeful conversations when reflect acting on ourcomplex history and basking strategies for engaging our
(29:04):
stakeholder community. Thanks as well toJoy Ford Austin, Jodi Simuda, and
Amy Anthony at the Institute of Politics, Policy and History. We are grateful
to the Kellogg Foundation for their generoussupport of this founding father's Legacy series.
(29:27):
Be sure to subscribe wherever you listento podcasts.
Hi. I'm Sharon Pratt, andI'm the founding director of the Institute of
Politics, Policy and History, alsoknown as IPH and IPPH is hosting a
series known as the Founding Father's LegacySeries, where we examined the three founding
fathers, Madison, Jefferson, andWashington, who were pivotal to establishing the
(00:30):
nation's capital in the South along thebanks of the Potomac now known as Washington,
DC. Today, we are examiningthe life of Thomas Jefferson and we're
very lucky, indeed to have withus Gail Jessup White. Gail Jessup White
(00:52):
is the author of the book Reclamation, which is her story, her family
story of their connection to Thomas Jefferson. Gail Jesseph White is the perfect person
to do this. She's a graduateof Howard University and Northwestern University. She
started her career as a journalist atThe New York Times and now she is
(01:15):
the public relations and community Engagement officerat Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. What a delight
to have you with us today,Gail. Welcome, may as you say,
make it Gail and Sharon today,Is that all right? Thank you
very much? Mayor. Sharon,Yes, that's it feels very comfortable.
(01:38):
It's a will honored to be herewith you today. Well, we're honored
and delighted. So reclamation. First, let me just say I so enjoyed
your book. I really enjoyed it. You're a good writer. You're a
very good writer. But the otherreason I enjoyed the book is that it
just was memory lane as somebody whogrew up in DC, because I also
(02:00):
and in Deanwood with suburban gardens beforemy mother died, where then I ended
up at Bloomingdale. But at anyrate, it was so it was just
moments and experiences that you had inWashington, and it was just wonderful to
go back or memory have that memoryLane experience because you capture it so well
(02:23):
and it's such a fascinating story.So we're going to talk about why on
earth you became so consumed with tryingto track down this rumor in the family,
so to speak, about how theJessips were connected to Thomas Jefferson.
What got grabbed your attention to thatextent. Well, so, Sharon,
(02:46):
consumed is the right word. Ibecame consumed from the moment I heard when
I was thirteen years old. Thereold history that our families descended from Thomas
Jefferson. Now this would have beenway back in the nineteenth evidence. I
heard the story from my oldest sister, Jan is twenty years older than I
was. In conversation with my dad. My sister was describing to him an
(03:09):
incident at the American embassy in Psigonwhere her husband was covering for Time magazine
the Vietnam War. Now, mysister and her husband were the guests of
honor at the American embassy, andthey were the only blacks there. This
would have been for them if we'retalking seventies from me, this would have
been late sixties for them. Andmy sister says, the guests are discussing
(03:30):
their heritage, the white guests,as if they were descended from royalty,
if they were descended from the verypeople that America had fought to win our
freedom. And she took great offenseto this. So my sister looks at
(03:50):
her husband and he gives her anod because he knows what's coming. My
sister, who is still at eightyfive years old, my sister is still
very beautiful. She has a swarmlike neck because she rose to her greatest
height, and she said to thegroup assembled, I'm descended from Thomas Jefferson.
Well, this is at a timewhen it had just become legal for
(04:12):
interracial marriage, so you can imaginewhat the reaction was in that room.
My sister said, the room wentdead, silent, and the silver touching.
This is the story I heard whenI was thirteen years old, and
I was flabbergasted. Growing up inWashington, DC, a majority black city,
a city that had great pride andits connections there, and being black
(04:36):
in its blackness and its command ofthat city, I was shocked. Now
there was some evidence right before me, right in front of me and my
dad. My dad was six two, freckle faced, red hair, and
I would learn, after priding himmuch pride to him, that his mother
(05:00):
was from Charlottesville. So I neededto make sense of how my white looking
dad could be related to the thirdPresident of the United States. Because we've
been taught not that Jefferson had ownedpeople. We had been taught that Jefferson
in fact was the beacon of freedom, having written the Declaration of Independence.
(05:21):
Now I mentioned that my dad lookedwhite because it's relevant in that he was
black but he looked white because that'swhat happened to our race. That's what
happened to our ancestors. They weremany women, were raped and exploited,
(05:42):
and the result was a person wholooked like my dad, which put me
closer to believing the story that wewere related to Jefferson because of the resemblance.
I could see it in him.Jefferson was tall, had freckles and
red hair. And for those whodon't know what our third president looked like,
so yes, consumed, obsessed,directed, guided, and I believe
(06:06):
by the aunt just to this storywhich ultimately brought me to Monticella. And
you had an aunt also who madethis assertion? Is that that so well?
So to me? A part ofwhat's remarkable about this story is that
it was kind of a family secret. No one talked about it. That's
why I was thirteen before I heardit, and that's why it was only
(06:26):
because I was eavesdropping in the conversationthat Jan was having with Dad that I
even learned about this history. Andthe only reason my sister knew about this
history was because she heard it frommy grandmother's half sister. It's on my
grandmother's side that we had this relationship. My grandmother's half sister was a woman
that we called Aunt Peachy. AuntPeachy was a domestic. She could not
(06:47):
read, write our spell her ownname. I never met her, but
Janis knew her. And remember Janisis twenty years older than I and our
Peachie's to live with us. Andour Peachy would say that jan constantly your
descent from Thomas Jefferson, I'm notfor you are because she was my grandmother's
half sister, and my sister heldon to that, and she rose to
(07:08):
the occasion, literally rose to theoccasion at that table in Psaigon when she
made the announcement, I'm descended fromThomas Jefferson. And that's how we heard
about it. Most of my dad'sfamily died, so there was only one
person left to carry that story on, and that was on Peachi. So,
Sharon, I would like to elevateI'd like to take this moment to
(07:30):
elevate Peachi and our ancestors like her, who were limited in their exposure,
limited what they could learn, butwho carried with them stories of families that
were so important and so essential towho we are. So much of our
history is undocumented, so we canonly learn it by listening. I always
(07:51):
encourage people to listen to their elders, of which of whom I should say,
I am one now, because wehold these stories. For so many
of us, it's the only waywe know our history. So I elevate
Aunt Peachy. I've dedicated my bookto Aunt Peachy because without her, you
and I would not be having thisconversation right now. So when you spoke
(08:16):
to your father about it, howdid you respond to it? I mean,
I read the book, but Iwant our audience to know. Of
course. Of course, Well,my dad, who kept his own counsel,
did not like to talk about hisheritage. My dad was a very
proud black man who resented the wayhe looked because he knew that someone in
his family had been compromised a woman, and his family had been exploited for
(08:41):
him to have the appearance of awhite man. He didn't want to talk
about it, so his response wassimply Initially, his response was, that's
what they say. That's all Dadsaid. Well, so I was kind
of a the youngest. I wasthe youngest, and I dare say Dad's
favorite, and I had pushed himprey spent many many a Sunday with him
watching the team we used to callthe Redskins play football, and many many
(09:05):
a Monday night football watching the gamewith him and learning about the game and
getting as close as I could tomy dad, And as a result,
he began to open up to me, and he started telling me about his
family, about old Washington, dc. About his losses, about his
five sisters who died from tuberculosis,about the mother he never knew because she
(09:26):
died when he was five years old, and how painful it was for him.
And that added to my commitment tomy need to know what happened to
his family, to my desire tobring to my dad some sort of solace
by finding his family, by findingthis Jefferson connection. I wanted my dad
(09:46):
to feel proud of his family,not only of his blackness, but of
the people who made him who hewas. And so I pushed Dad until
he was able to tell me asmuch as he could about his family,
and that ultimately led me to aconversation with his brother, who was the
(10:11):
only person who survived what I callthe holocaust of the loss in his family.
If you can imagine the devastation oflosing five girls, all five girls
and his mother, so the twoboys were the only ones to survive.
My uncle was the older and heremembered a lot more than my dad did.
(10:33):
And my uncle also held two bibles. One belonged to the Jessup family
and one belonged to the Robinson family, the Robinson Taylor family, my grandmother
Robinson Taylor, and he bequeathed thatbible to me, which is today my
prize possession. It's dated eighteen twentyone and it has the initials gosh right
(10:54):
now. The initial TEA on itis what I can recall at the moment,
T. I would learn through throughthank you. How do you remember
that? Not? Don't just readthe book. I just said it was
my first possession. I couldn't rememberthe initials on it, but yes,
(11:15):
thank you, the initials DT.It would be literally decades later that I've
learned that that T represented Taylor.I'm going to digress for a minute.
I said that my grandmother's name wasRobinson and Taylor Robinson was her official name,
was the name on her official documents, the census records, her death
(11:39):
certificate, and Jessip of course,as she and my grandfather were married,
but Taylor Taylor was the name thatshe used on sacred documents. So on
my dad's baptismal certificate, for example, it says Taylor. What I learned
after years and years of research wasthat Taylor was the name of one of
(12:00):
Jefferson's great great grandsons, and hisname was Monkia Robinson Taylor. And through
DNA I learned that my great grandfatherwas, in fact, that very man
Moncia Robinson Taylor, who later marriedat fifty. I think you have in
your books that he married at fifty, and he had and they didn't live
(12:22):
far apart, and she worked foror was it her mother worked for somebody
also in the Jefferson family. So, in fact, this Monkia Robinson Taylor,
my great grandfather, had relations witha woman named Rachel Robinson. My
great grandfather, right. Rachel Robinsonwas the daughter of a woman named Sally
(12:46):
Hemmonds Robinson. Salie Hemmons Robinson isnot to be mistaken with the famous Sally
Hemmings who was concubined to Thomas Jeffersonand who gave him six children. Sali
Hemmons Robinson was her niece, right, So that makes me a Jefferson through
one of his great great grandsons,and a Hemmings through a brother, Peter.
(13:09):
Peter was in fact Sally Hemmings's brotherand my three times great grandfather.
It's convoluted, but it's all therein a family tree, and it's all
supported by eural history, by DNA, and by documentation. And it's the
same kind of evidence that we haveto prove in fact that Sally Hemmings and
(13:31):
Thomas Jefferson had relations. You see, that was debated for literally hundreds of
years whether Sally Hemmings and Jefferson hadchildren together. Well, in fact,
we have the earl history, wehave a DNA, and we have the
documentation that proves in fact the sixchildren she had were his and they had
the way was it the Richmond Gazette. I mean it was a story when
(13:56):
he ran for president and then ranfor reelection. It was it was all
you know that it was a story. It would have to be a story.
Neighbors knew about it, everyone knewabout it. And a man named
James Calendar published it in I thinkof an eighteen oh one in a Richmond
newspaper, and in fact Jefferson hadJefferson kept a woman he called her Dusky
(14:18):
Sally, and that they had childrentogether. So it was known then,
and it was a political scandal thatJefferson, who was a brilliant manipulator and
a brilliant in many ways but infact a brilliant politician, managed to survive
all accusations. Scholars have contested itfor years, but the evidence is all
(14:39):
there, just as it is formy family. The thing about my family
is that nobody knew. We didn'twe would have disappeared. Had it not
been again for Aunt Peachey carrying thatstory, we would have disappeared. But
my family is part of that history. And I should add the beautiful thing
about the descendants of Monticello is thatbecause Jefferson kept such copious notes, we
(15:03):
know a lot about our ancestors priorto emancipation in eighteen sixty five, in
that first sens in eighteen seventy.But our family is no different from the
millions of people who were enslaved.What we know about our family and Monticello
is as much a part of allthe descendants of the saved people. Because
that they were, their lives wouldhave been reflective of the lives that have
(15:26):
been written about from in Jefferson's notes. So when people he did not do
it very he was not. Imean what was a giveaway also was that
he didn't seemingly have as copious notesregarding Sally and you know, as he
did with other members of the thereon the estate. Well. So so
(15:50):
it's not that the middle toward auscopious, it's that there was nothing in
that information that would indicate that shehad a special relationship. Right, he
kept the same notes about her thathe would have but anybody else who was
who was his property. Is exactlyhe bought extra material for her, extra
cloth for her when they were livingin Paris together, or there would be
(16:14):
a reference to the children are whenSally had a baby, Sally Hemmings had
a babies, the same kind ofrecord he would have kept for everybody else.
Of course, with Sally Hemmy isthe difference is that we have their
own son, Madison, who gavea newspaper in Ohio in oral history a
memoir, and that's in fact partof the documentation that we have to indicate
(16:40):
that there were children had by blackchildren had by Thomas Jefferson with Sally Hemmings.
Now okay, so, and thenSally's brothers, one of whom is
James, who is the chef,and and became a great fast, celebrated
chef. You know, Lisi inspireda great many celebrated chef. So he
(17:03):
celebrated now. So he wasn't celebratedin his lifetime. He wasn't enslaved chef
who was in Paris with Jefferson whenhe was minister to France. Sally Hemmings
was in Paris as well as madeto two of his children, to his
two daughters. And it was inFrance that James learned the art of French
cookery. He brought that skill backto America with him, negotiated with Jefferson
(17:27):
his freedom if he taught someone elsethat same art. The person he taught,
because it was expensive for James tolearn this skill in Paris. The
person he taught the art of Frenchcookery was in fact my three times great
grandfather, Peter, who was alsoa cook and mont Chella admired at that
time for his muffins, but infact not celebrating until today today in the
(17:48):
current environment, we give James creditfor a we won't say inventing macaroni and
cheese, but enhancing macaroni and cheese. As I once said in the program
on Netflix called her in the Hogwhere my royalties exactly that that's a fact.
So tell me when you you alsoconnected with a white ancestor is it
(18:12):
who was in California as you didthe research around you know this connection at
Monticello because she was respected as oneof the first Virginia is it ancestors?
What is it f f V FirstFamilies of Virginia, First Families of Virginia
vast. Her name is Test Taylor, and Test Tailor helped provide the DNA
(18:34):
evidence. She's a poet and shepublished a book that I read about on
the internet, so I reached outto her. She got in touch and
me began a conversation together, andshe wrote we met. She came to
Monticello when we met, and shewrote about it in the New York Times
and after that was after that piecewas published, Marry Lewis Gates, incidentally
(18:59):
a friend of my husband's but didn'trecognize my name at all, Reacheddon and
asked if we'd like to do aDNA test, and of course we agreed
and we did two tests and thematches were overwhelming to the Randolph Jefferson families.
Jefferson was in facted Randolph, andso tests did help provide the evidence
(19:21):
that we are Jefferson descendants. Thething that's so funny is that this is,
well, it's funny to my familyanyway, to my sister and to
me. This is an oral historythat my sister and I believed for some
forty years that was unproven. Whenthe DNA test results were coming in,
my sister and I said, Okay, what's going to happen. If it's
(19:41):
you know, five matches, whatdo we do Because we have believed all
these years and have said all theseyears and we're related to Thomas Jefferson exactly,
had no evidence at all. Somy sister says, Okay, that's
our story and we're sticking to it. Soliker sperit. Indeed, So as
it turned out, there the storythat rural history is in that room.
(20:04):
So how was this reality received bythe first families of Virginia? How was
it received by Monticello? How isit? Because even now when I've talked
to historians, they referred to eventhe Hemmings relationship the Sally him as the
purported relationship even to this day,there's some historians who do well. So
(20:30):
for clarification, the first Families ofVirginia are those families that founded the colony
and that intermarried. Among them arenames such as Carter, Randolph Taylor,
all cousins all to somehow descendants ofmine. Who who are I'm want to
(20:52):
go back to couple called the Adamand Eve of Virginia, who are elevated
among the very elite among Virginia's families. Children such as my ancestors would have
been called the natural children of thesefounders, and the natural children, of
(21:14):
course would have been enslaved and wouldnot have been given the recognition as members
of the so called first families ofVirginia. Right. So when you ask
how people how those descendants respond today, well, it kind of depends on
who they are. There's some peoplewho are open and are willing to have
(21:37):
recognized in fact that these founders haverelations within saint women, that they raped
these women in fact, and thatwe are cousins as distant as we might
be. And there are others whodon't care to have this recognition at all
and consider themselves entitled to whatever FirstFamily of Virginia might mean at this point.
(22:02):
As far as Monicelloston's turn, well, Monicello has totally acknowledged our scholars
and acknowledged that their descendants of SallyHammans and Thomas Jefferson, that he fathered
six and her children, four ofwhom survived into adulthood, that those children
were freed at the age of twentyone. Her negotiations that Sally Hemmians had
(22:22):
with Jefferson when they were in Paristogether if she would come back with him,
because if she remained in Friends,she would have been free. If
she came back with him, shewould have privileges for herself and freedom for
their unborn children. And in fact, that was honored by his daughter,
Martha Jefferson Randolph after he died ineighteen twenty six, on July fourth,
(22:45):
exactly fifty years after the signing ofthe Declaration of Independence. So the foundation
has been very supportive at Monicello.When people visit, they will see that
there is an exhibition called the Lifeof Sally Hammings totally dedicated to her,
not to her as an appendage ofJeffersons, but to her as a human
being, and as an individual whofor a moment in time, practiced her
(23:07):
own agency, a woman who wasa world traveler, a mother, a
daughter, and an emancipator because hersix children were freed some sixty years i
should say, decades before freedom fora four million enslaved African American people.
(23:32):
She is to be honored and admiredfor that. Right, Well, there
are many takeaways from your story,probably far too many for us to explore
today, but whether America can wrestlewith this reality acknowledge people of African descent
as anything other than invisible chattel tobe used, I mean, we know
(23:57):
even to this day. And partof what I think I will speak to
is that what was established and Jeffersondidn't wasn't the author of it, but
he was certainly a complicit, intentionalagent of it, was a very significant
racial hierarchy in America where certain peoplewere forever to own and have economic political
(24:22):
power and others were never to havepolitical and economic power. And to a
great extent, that hierarchy continues,which is why I think it is still
a challenge to really have true acceptanceof your family story. You know it
(24:45):
was, it's still a point oftension in this country, because that would
be an acknowledgement that we were morethan chattel. We actually were active contributors
to the founding and evolution of America, and that's why we had what is
going on now, the culture wars. But I won't go off of my
(25:06):
tangent. It's just that it's sucha rich story, a story where you
had to engage in such an intenselevel of almost investigative reporting to get to
the bottom of it. But it'salso the political cultural fault line of this
country, even in twenty twenty three, and so one needs to spend many
(25:30):
sessions having conversations with you and otherswho were impacted, such as a friend
of ours. We talked about Rolaband Konda who his family were enslaved at
Mount Vernon, and of course JamesFrench is going to be joining us,
and his were at narn Barbersville rightnext to it, to Montpeliem. But
we have always been invisible in Americanhistory and remain invisible, and there are
(25:55):
some who insist that we should continueto be invisible because if we have the
truth, Heaven forbid, that mightupset some kids today. So I can't
thank you enough for being as determinedas you have been, for being able
to harvest this history and tell thisstory in a way that's so engaging and
(26:17):
compelling, and continuing your work atThomas Jefferson's Monticello so that it is all
of our Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Sothank you so much, Gail Jesseph White.
Thank you so much. Mea SharingPratt, is honored to be here
with you. I really enjoyed thisconversation. You're a marvelous, marvelous listener.
(26:38):
So thank you so much. GailJesseph White has been terrific. Her
story is so personal, and itallows us to get a sense of the
families that were always invisible, andto some extent, remain invisible except for
(27:03):
a few select personalities who managed topenetrate the space, such as Gail Jessup
White. There was always a connectionin many ways to Thomas Jefferson on the
part of Gail Jessup White's family,because she is also a descendant of Peter
(27:23):
Hemmings, who is the brother ofSally Hemmings, and it took forever for
America to recognize that indeed, ThomasJefferson had a long standing relationship with a
woman that was enslaved by him,and that was Sally Hemmings. He and
Sally Hemmings had many children. ButGail Jesseph White also speaks of another connection
(27:51):
her family has, and that wasto Thomas Jefferson's great great grandson as well
as his relationship with a Rachel Robinsonand how that impacted her life. So
it's been a rich story and itgives us a great insight into the complicated,
(28:14):
difficult relationships that have existed since theinception of this country, and particularly
in an environment where there was sucha determined, intentional commitment to a racial
hierarchy established for purposes of slavery inAmerica. This episode was edited by Baywulf
(28:41):
Rockland, Roosevelt Hine, and LisaHudy of Two Squared Media Productions. Special
thanks to Isabel Dorville for her researchand production support, Folk Diversity for ensuring
purposeful conversations when reflect acting on ourcomplex history and basking strategies for engaging our
(29:04):
stakeholder community. Thanks as well toJoy Ford Austin, Jodi Simuda, and
Amy Anthony at the Institute of Politics, Policy and History. We are grateful
to the Kellogg Foundation for their generoussupport of this founding father's Legacy series.
(29:27):
Be sure to subscribe wherever you listento podcasts.
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