Reclamation
Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant's Search for Her Family's Lasting Legacy
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings’ family explores America’s racial reckoning through the prism of her ancestors—both the enslaver and the enslaved.
Gayle Jessup White had long heard the stories passed down from her father’s family, that they were direct descendants of Thomas Jefferson—lore she firmly believed, though others did not. For four decades the acclaimed journalist and genealogy enthusiast researched her connection to Thomas Jefferson, to confirm its truth once and for all.
After she was named a Jefferson Studies Fellow, Jessup White discovered her family lore was correct. Poring through photos and documents and pursuing DNA evidence, she learned that not only was she a descendant of Jefferson on his father’s side; she was also the great-great-great-granddaughter of Peter Hemings, Sally Hemings’s brother.
In Reclamation she chronicles her remarkable journey to definitively understand her heritage and reclaim it, and offers a compelling portrait of what it means to be a black woman in America, to pursue the American dream, to reconcile the legacy of racism, and to ensure the nation lives up to the ideals advocated by her legendary ancestor.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
White, a former journalist who now works in public relations at Monticello, debuts with a vivid account of her search for proof that she is related to Thomas Jefferson and two of the families he enslaved, the Hemingses and the Hubbards. Mixing memoir and history, White describes growing up "Negro rich" in Washington, D.C., in the 1960s, her parents' tumultuous marriage, and her first brush with racism during a trip to Las Vegas at age 13. She learned from her older sister—who had heard it from a great aunt—that the family was somehow related to Thomas Jefferson, and was inspired to investigate the connection by Annette Gordon-Reed's The Hemingses of Monticello, which detailed the relationship between Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings, who was also his wife's half-sister, and the TV series Roots. She recreated her family's genealogy by scouring the few historical records available, meeting with distant relatives and Jefferson scholars, and, with the help of DNA evidence, she eventually determined that she is a direct descendant of Sally Hemings's brother, Peter, and the great-granddaughter of Moncure Robinson Taylor, Jefferson's great-great grandson. Noting that the lives of Monticello's enslaved families were ignored in the plantation's exhibitions until recently, White issues a powerful call for reconsidering Jefferson's legacy and centering the Black experience in American history. This spirited memoir charts a hopeful path for a more honest reckoning with the legacy of slavery.
