[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 4526-4536]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           RACISM, DEADLY DIFFERENCES AND DIVERSITY PROBLEMS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, I would like to address a number of issues 
that I think are very much related to the problem of racism, of deadly 
differences, and diversity problems that have broken out all over the 
world and we are part of trying to resolve.
  A lot of them occur right here at home. In my own city of New York, a

[[Page 4527]]

poll was taken that showed, and the New York Times announced today, 
that one-fourth of all New Yorkers, white and black New Yorkers, 
believe that the police of New York City behave quite differently with 
people of color, with minority groups, African Americans, Hispanics, 
and Asians, they behave quite differently with them than they do with 
whites. Whites as well as blacks have come to this conclusion. One-
fourth of all the citizens of New York believe that this is the case.
  So we have a serious problem right at home with a very crucial body 
of people, the police, who are so vital to the law and order of the 
city for everybody, everybody's protection.
  Then we have far-ranging problems like those that are taking place in 
Kosovo and Yugoslavia where this government is spending large amounts 
of money, we have spent about $9 billion, to try to work through 
situations in Yugoslavia which evolve out of racial and ethnic and 
religious differences. Whereas I was all in favor, of course, of 
extending the resources of this country into that situation, I think 
that the Yugoslavia situation is totally out of hand. And $9 billion, 
more than $9 billion is enough to invest.
  Our Nation is an indispensable Nation available, and I think that is 
important to help with trouble spots anywhere in the world. But we 
should not let ourselves get sucked into any trouble spot for so long 
that it absorbs an inordinate amount of resources and takes away the 
possibility of helping with other problems.
  I think it was right that we went into Haiti to help liberate Haiti 
from people who had taken over from a duly elected democratic 
government. I think it was important that we went into Somalia. I think 
it is important that the President has shown great concern, and there 
are some resources now deployed in Rwanda. All of these situations, 
Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia, Northern Ireland. Our 
President did not dispense large amounts of military aid in Northern 
Ireland, but his own personal commitment there and the use of American 
diplomatic skills have helped to abate that situation.
  But all over the country, all over the world, we have these conflicts 
based on differences and diversity. They are probably going to go on 
for a long, long time. We have to learn how to live with them and to 
try to abate them and try to lessen them. Hopefully over the long 
period, decades and centuries, we can eliminate some of them.
  First we have to understand how difficult it is and how deeply 
entrenched it is and how it is important that governmental resources be 
invested in the effort to lessen the amount of racism, hate crimes, 
ethnic rivalries that exist and might explode at any moment. It is 
important.
  It is important that we understand the need to deal, first of all, 
with those that are closest to us. One of the closest conflicts and 
ongoing problems in America is racism related to the long history of 
African Americans who were held in slavery for 232 years.
  We do not like to think that 232 years of slavery had any 
consequences or that there is anything special about this particular 
group and their relationship with the rest of the Americans, just as we 
do not like to think there is any special relationship between the 
Native Americans and the rest of the American people, that there should 
be any special consideration.
  But surely there ought to be some special consideration about the 
relationship between the descendents of the Native Americans and the 
rest of the Americans in view of the fact that history was quite brutal 
with respect to the Native Americans.
  History was quite brutal with respect to African Americans who are a 
group of people in this country, in this hemisphere, only because they 
were transported to this hemisphere against their will.
  So I want to talk about all of these things. In the news today, there 
was also an account of a new effort to try to fight slavery in the 
Sudan and slavery in Mauritania. We have some groups that are American 
based that are actually raising money to buy slaves from the Sudanese.
  The Sudanese are practicing slavery in a very cruel and inhuman way 
even to this day. They say it is all part of the Civil War. Only the 
women and children of the enemy are captured, and they have a right to 
take them and use them for bounty and whatever. Whatever the reason 
given, it is still slavery.
  In 1999, in Sudan, which is a country of people who are of dark hue, 
one might say black, a lot of black people, whatever range of color 
they may have, there is slavery.
  There is slavery in Mauritania. Arabs and people of an Arab descent 
and African descent, all in Mauritania. But in Mauritania, there are 
some black people who are still enslaved in 1999.
  I thought that was interesting that that appeared on the news today. 
At the same time I heard on the news this morning, and I listen usually 
to National Public Radio, and there was some bad news about Northern 
Ireland. A civil rights lawyer in Northern Ireland, Catholic civil 
rights activist lawyer was assassinated with a fire bomb. A fire bomb 
blew up her car.
  So we have reminders of many kinds of how these ethnic tensions, 
religion. In the case of Ireland, it is religion that has divided 
people. It is very interesting how human beings seem to look for 
reasons for conflict. They want to accentuate differences. So we have 
people who are ethnically pretty much the same, racially the same in 
Northern Ireland, but the religious differences have set off a long 
time feud which is quite violent and bloody.
  In Somalia, we could not understand what the problem was in Somalia. 
They were all most of the same religion, same race. There were no deep 
tribal divisions. They all spoke the same language.
  Yet, in Somalia, the human beings there found ways to accentuate some 
differences. That was generally based on pure politics, people having 
power ambitions in one area and organizing their own gang; and over 
here, they would organize another gang. There were no tribes, but they 
created tribes out of interests that were really power interests.
  Of course here is the crux of the problem. Most of the time, these 
ethnic tensions, racial tensions and divisions are accelerated and 
exacerbated by people who do want power, demagogues who exploit the 
situation for power reasons.
  We have 232 years of slavery in this Nation because, for economic 
reasons, which also are power reasons, for economic reasons, it was 
beneficial to enslave a population and provide the free labor from one 
end of the country to the other. It was mostly in the south, the 
plantations. There was a long-term need for free labor and large 
amounts of labor there.
  But in New York, large amounts of slaves were used to build the 
original city. Slavery was just as cruel there as it was anywhere else. 
The third largest slave port of the country at one time was a New York 
slave port. So all of these things still have their long-term fallout 
on history. It would do well for us to pay more attention to history.
  I applaud President Clinton and his appointment of a commission on 
race relations to at least stimulate a set of discussions and dialogues 
among the American people about the issue of race and differences in 
relationships.
  Some people say it got out of hand and it was not very productive. It 
only had a year's life. For whatever the problems were, it was still a 
positive, constructive action. I hope the President will follow it up 
with further action. But more importantly, here is an area where I 
think foundations and philanthropists could make a contribution.

                              {time}  1715

  There are a lot of controversies that are inevitably associated with 
anything related to race relations. The controversies could probably 
better be handled by the philanthropic sector. And the kind of 
controversies they are, they are not so much current but scholarly 
discussions and discussions of positions and attitudes, and I think 
they ought to be handled more with foundations and other philanthropic

[[Page 4528]]

organizations financing those areas than the government. But the 
government should stimulate that discussion. President Clinton started 
the discussion, and I think we ought to, as a government, follow up on 
that.
  I think that the resolution of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Tony 
Hall), that called for the government of America to apologize for 
slavery, which aroused so much controversy and ill feeling across the 
country, I think that is still a pertinent item of discussion. I think 
it is a lightning rod that we should really discuss.
  Why should the American government not apologize for slavery when we 
are seeing the governments of Japan and of Germany and various other 
governments that exist now that were not really there, the German 
government was not there when Hitler was there, but the present 
government has apologized in certain areas; as well as the government 
of Japan has apologized to the Korean women who were forced into 
prostitution and to some others; and other apologies are taking place.
  The Swiss government just apologized and set up a fund to the victims 
of greed the holocaust victims of greed, where they put the money in 
Swiss banks and the Swiss banks used various maneuvers to keep those 
people from getting money.
  So it is a discussion which carries civilization forward, and a 
discussion of an American apology for slavery would do a great deal in 
that direction.
  I think the South Africans set an example for civilized nations of 
today and the future that should not be ignored. The Government of 
South Africa today, the new Government of South Africa today, that took 
over just 4 years ago, insisted that it would not seek justice, it 
would seek reconciliation. That was a very important and unprecedented 
move by a national government.
  Here is a government made up of a new majority. The majority of the 
people, about 40 million black Africans in South Africa, had been 
oppressed for many decades by the white South Africans. The black 
majority took over in South Africa. The government was made up of a 
government elected by the people and most of the people in power were 
black. Instead of seeking justice, which would have resulted in large 
numbers of trials, executions, and a whole lot of revenge-seeking, the 
South African government that took power proclaimed that it wanted 
reconciliation. And no matter how horrible the crime was, no matter how 
horrible the political crime was related to the politics of the long 
years of oppression and the fight against apartheid, they would allow 
people to come forward and, if they would tell the truth, they would 
offer amnesty to those folks who told the truth.
  More important than the individuals who came forward and the 
testimonies that took place and the whole unprecedented kind of 
activity that they developed, is the spirit that that sent out 
throughout the whole country; that we are not going to look at the 
past, we are not going to live in the past to the point where it 
becomes a noose around the throat of the future and the present. We are 
not going to seek justice to the point where it destroys the 
possibility for reconciliation and progress.
  So reconciliation. And this was a new idea to me, I never thought of 
it that way before Nelson Mandela and the Government of South Africa 
today put it forward. Reconciliation is more important than justice. 
Reconciliation is more important than justice.
  We hammered home this same theme when Jean Bertrand Aristide was 
restored to his rightful place in Haiti. The government of the United 
States insisted that he also follow the same policy. We made an 
official request that the Aristide government not seek justice but, 
instead, emphasize reconciliation.
  That whole approach, of course, is being carried out in Bosnia and 
Serbia and Croatia. We are paying billions for that, too much in my 
opinion, but we are leading the way to a process of reconciliation, 
which will provide for building for a future rather than justice.
  I do not say justice is not important, and I do not think human 
society can exist unless we have forms of punishment. People must be 
punished, and there must be an understanding that individuals will be 
held accountable for crimes. I do not think anybody would ever say that 
Hitler should have been treated the way some of the leaders of Haiti 
were treated.
  The United States Government actually paid the rent, leased the homes 
of the dictators in Haiti that they deposed. Cedras and the other two 
who were at the top of the official terror apparatus in Haiti were 
treated like princes and helped to get out of the place and given 
enough income to maintain themselves for a long time. They are still 
out there alive, and may come back. That is a danger. Instead of 
justice, it was important that they be moved from the scene peacefully 
in order to facilitate reconciliation.
  Now, I do not think the Nuremberg trials were wrong, I do not think 
the trials of the Japanese perpetrators of massive violence in Asia, 
the people who attacked Pearl Harbor, I do not think it was wrong to 
punish them. That is going quite far. But it is something to consider, 
this whole reconciliation process. And in the case of the nations now 
that participate in reconciliation, we are seeing a more positive 
result as a result of reconciliation being placed above justice.
  But the South Africans in the process of seeking reconciliation felt 
it was very important to have truth. Truth was a very important part of 
establishing reconciliation. I think in America we have missed that 
point with respect to race relations, and certainly relationships 
between the Native Americans and the rest of the American population, 
and certainly with relationship between the African Americans and the 
rest of the American population.
  We have never admitted, as a government, that great crimes were done 
to the African Americans who were enslaved, and that the consequences 
of 232 years of slavery need to be studied. The truth needs to be laid 
out, and we need to take steps to combat some of those consequences.
  A very interesting individual specific development is taking place 
which I think we ought to focus on as part of the way to get more truth 
thrown on the whole phenomenon of American slavery. There is a 
controversy which is made for America because it is very individual, it 
is very personal, and it involves a love story. It is the story of 
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.
  Sally Hemings was a slave at Monticello under Thomas Jefferson. For 
many, many years there has been a controversy about whether or not 
there was a relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson 
which produced some children, four or five children. The controversy is 
not about whether Thomas Jefferson might have had sex with Sally 
Hemings. Many slave owners had sex with their slaves, and there are 
millions of mulattos that resulted from those unions to provide 
concrete evidence that many slave owners had sexual relationships with 
their slaves. The problem with Jefferson is that it appears that he had 
a long-term relationship with Sally Hemings, that he treated her as if 
she was his common law wife.
  For 38 years, Sally Hemings was on the scene, starting from the time 
that she went to Paris as a nurse and maid for Jefferson's youngest 
daughter, to the time that Jefferson died. She was there all the time. 
She was there in Paris. She could have gone free; stayed in Paris and 
been a free person. She did not. She came back to Monticello. She was 
in Monticello during the whole time that Jefferson was President. And 
when he left the Presidency, she remained at Monticello, and she was 
there when he died.
  There was a big public scandal related to the relationship between 
Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. A man named Callendar, who had been 
a so-called friend of Jefferson, Jefferson had gotten him out of prison 
when John Adams, with his alien and sedition laws put large numbers of 
people in prison who were accused of treason on the basis of what they 
wrote and the criticisms they made of the government, Callendar was 
imprisoned. And, of

[[Page 4529]]

course, Jefferson was against the alien and sedition laws and against 
the federalist dictatorship that was being generated.
  Once Jefferson was elected as President, Callendar was set free. 
Callendar had written articles and done some things with Jefferson's 
party and Jefferson, and Callendar wanted to become a postmaster. When 
Jefferson would not make him a postmaster, Callendar turned on 
Jefferson and went to Monticello and got all the gossip together, and 
he was the one who accused Jefferson of having a mistress with children 
at Monticello.
  It became a big public scandal. It was in newspapers from one part of 
the country to the other. Jefferson was ridiculed. John Quincy Adams 
wrote a ballad making fun of him, et cetera, et cetera. Jefferson never 
admitted anything, of course. He never even commented. But the 
relationship was not ended. Sally Hemings was not sent away from 
Monticello. She remained there. She remained there during his 
Presidency, and then after he went back, she remained there, and until 
his death, as I have just said several times. So Sally Hemings and 
Thomas Jefferson, the questions remained.
  A historian recently, not so recently, about 15 years ago, documented 
the fact that Jefferson was at Monticello every time that Sally Hemings 
conceived children. The period before the birth of her children, he was 
at Monticello at all those times. They had other various things that 
they documented in his notations in his farm books, et cetera, which 
indicated that Sally Hemings was very much a presence at Monticello.
  There are certain letters, of course, and other kinds of things that 
are missing from Jefferson's numerous writings that were also timed at 
a time when he had some kind of important relationship that might have 
had a record of some kind of relationship with Sally Hemings. Many of 
those letters are missing. No documentation.
  Sally Hemings is erased from history. We do not have any photographs 
of her or any descriptions of her, except the one or two from her son 
and from a man who had been a slave at Monticello, Isaac Jefferson.
  So I will talk about the controversy that has now mounted to the 
point where so much documentation existed which confirmed the fact that 
there was a relationship between Jefferson and Hemings that a DNA test 
was developed. A scientist who happened to be residing at Monticello 
carefully put together a DNA test. He secretly got permission from 
Jefferson offspring, known offspring of the Jefferson family, and he 
got permission and DNA from the offspring of Sally Hemings. And after 
putting it through a very rigorous set of tests, the confirmation is 
that it is very probable. The DNA tests bear out the other kinds of 
documentation that Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings' youngest 
child and, therefore, it makes all of the other evidence more credible.
  I am going to quote from an article that I wrote on this whole 
matter, and I think I will save some time and make the point that I am 
trying to make tonight better if I read from this article. It is 
entitled ``Kingpins for Truth and Reconciliation, Thomas and Sally''.
  ``DNA evidence confirming Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings 
could open the door for a more profound dialogue on slavery and race 
relations.''
  If that strikes my colleagues as strange, let me read it again. ``DNA 
evidence confirming Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings could 
open the door for a more profound dialogue on slavery and race 
relations''.
  This portion of slavery that has never been discussed fully is 
related to the fact that there were intimate relations between the 
races. From a power point of view, it usually was the slave owners and 
the overseers and the people who had privileges and power who 
interacted with the female slaves. But out of that is a set of truths 
that come concerning myths about inferiority, myths about abilities to 
coexist, a number of things which not only are documented and 
reinforced by the new evidence of Jefferson's relationship with Sally 
Hemings, but there have been several books written lately which I think 
also fall into this same pattern.
  I am going to read first from my article to make things shorter.

                              {time}  1730

  I will read some excerpts from it. ``Only a few months after the 
release of the report of the Advisory Board of the President's 
Initiative on Race, and that report is entitled `One America In The 
21st Century: Forging a New Future,' a scientific report has confirmed 
the likelihood that President Thomas Jefferson was the father of the 
children of his slave and long-time companion, Sally Hemings. These two 
events can be constructively related.''
  Let me repeat. ``Only a few months after the release of the report of 
the Advisory Board of the President's Initiative on Race, and the 
report is entitled `One America In The 21st Century, Forging a New 
Future,' a scientific report has confirmed the likelihood that 
President Thomas Jefferson was the father of the children of his slave 
and long-time companion Sally Hemings. These two events can be 
constructively related.''
  And again, I want to point out that two new books have come out which 
talk about slave owners and their children by slaves. And I read only 
the review of this. I have not had a chance to read the book. The 
review appeared in the Washington Post. It is called ``The Hairstons, 
an American Family in Black and White,'' published by St. Martin's 
Press. And it talks about a family where slaves and slave owners and 
the personnel of the plantations were intermixed, and it singles out 
one tragic story of one slave owner who decided that he loved his slave 
wife, common-law wife. Some would call it a mistress or concubine. I do 
not think he thought of it that way. He loved her so much that he 
willed her daughter a large part of his property. And there was a big 
fight to take that property away, which succeeded of course, and she 
was left in slavery. But a very concrete tragedy there.
  Another book that recently came out is called ``Slaves in the 
Family.'' The author of that one is Edward Ball. ``Slaves in the 
Family'' by Edward Ball goes back and deals with a South Carolina based 
huge plantation and a large family over several generations and he 
shows how the intermarriage and the mixtures came down to the present.
  I think it is important, another book that also talks about this in 
more general terms and had the advantage of being part of a public 
television series is ``Africans in America.'' ``Africans in America'' 
brings out some very interesting facts that are little known about 
slavery and the freed men and the whole relationship with the general 
population, etcetera.
  So returning to my article, ``The new discussions of the life, 
philosophy, and politics of Thomas Jefferson might do more to 
facilitate an honest assessment of black-white relations in America 
than the report which is laden with facts.''
  The report is the ``One America in the 21st Century'' that was put 
out by the Initiative On Race. I thought it was an interesting report. 
But, as my colleagues can see from my remarks here, I do not think it 
went nearly far enough. But if we took the report together with the new 
facts, together these two developments could greatly enhance our 
understanding of an extremely complex phenomena.
  ``The weakness of the report of the President's Advisory Board is 
that it is thorough about obvious kinds of things that we all know 
about but it lacks the vital ingredient of profundity. The report is 
competent, respectful, universal in its coverage, balanced, and not at 
all an embarrassment to the White House. However, when the depth of the 
deliberations of that report are measured against the complexity of the 
mission and the intensity of the challenge, the appropriate grade for 
this noble but feeble effort would be B- or C+. Our national dialogue 
would be greatly benefited by the establishment of several adequately 
financed commissions on group relations.

[[Page 4530]]

  ``Native Americans certainly deserve their own separate historical 
documentation and analysis. African-Americans require no less than an 
objective statement of history, a thorough and comprehensive study as a 
basis for the unraveling of the many complexities of our present 
interaction with mainstream society.
  ``Contrary to the beliefs of many African-Americans, as well as 
others, current policy-making would be greatly enhanced by a world-
class study of American slavery and the thwarted reconstruction effort 
that followed the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th, 14th and 15th 
Amendments. Such a study would be useful if it is done in the spirit of 
truth and reconciliation.
  ``The noble embryo that the President's Initiative has planted should 
be allowed to sprout and grow. Using the bully pulpit of the White 
House, the President should call on private foundations to finance such 
a world-class project and he should recommend that the world's top 
scholars and thinkers, including Nobel Prize winners, be recruited to 
provide research and editorial guidance for such a study.
  ``One of the first items that should be placed on the research and 
analysis agenda is a controversial question of the relationship between 
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. It would be a human interest case 
study offering great illuminations for American history. It could also 
be an educational landmark love story that captures the attention of a 
mass audience and forces them to confront the institution of slavery in 
all of its dimensions.
  ``The scientific validation of Jefferson's paternity with respect to 
Hemings' children is a historical blockbuster. DNA evidence has exposed 
the fact that respected academicians and historians have promulgated or 
tolerated a dangerous and suffocating denial of certain self-evident 
truths about American slavery. This same distortion process applies to 
too much of American history as it relates to slavery, the Civil War 
and reconstruction.
  ``Unlike the very civilized behavior of the new rulers of South 
Africa, the United States has never had a truth and reconciliation 
commission. As part of a larger effort, the story of Thomas Jefferson 
and Sally Hemings could provide a potent spark to generate a bonfire of 
new revelations which will increase the possibility of long-term, 
improved black-white reconciliation.''
  Most people would say that they do not see how any probing of such a 
relationship could lead to anything but more controversy, more 
hostility, and more antagonism between the races, starting with the 
numerous African-Americans who want to throw Thomas Jefferson down from 
his throne because now it has been confirmed that he took advantage of 
a slave woman. Well, I do not think the evidence confirms anything of 
the nature.
  Slave owners were in a position to take advantage of all their 
slaves. That is true. But the evidence with respect to Thomas Jefferson 
is that this particular woman he cared a great deal for. He maintained 
her near him in Monticello, in the mansion, for 38 years despite a 
scandal that normally would lead a politician to distance himself from 
such a person.
  ``The story of Thomas and Sally may be summarized as follows: While 
Jefferson was serving as the American ambassador in Paris, Sally 
Hemings arrived as a maid for his younger daughter who sailed from 
Virginia to join her father. Jefferson seduced her, and the pregnant 
Sally returned to America only after he promised that all of her 
children would be set free. Under French law, she could have remained a 
free person in France.
  ``During the first year of his presidency, a journalist exposed the 
fact that Jefferson had a `slave mistress' who was the mother of his 
children. The third president of the United States refused to answer 
this charge. He also never removed Sally Hemings from Monticello. They 
were together for 38 years at Monticello until Jefferson died.
  ``Three of their children were allowed to `run.' '' Jefferson noted 
in his farm books and his accounts that whenever one of the Hemings 
children left the plantation they really were set free with his 
consent, he would just note in his book that they were allowed to run. 
Because to set them free required certain kinds of filing of papers; 
and in Virginia, once you were set free, you had a limited amount of 
time to get out of the State. There were complications. So they were 
just allowed to run and the notations were made.
  Nevertheless, these same children who were allowed to run always 
ended up in urban settings where they got new footing and it was 
assumed that Jefferson, and his friends had helped to establish his 
children in those new settings to enable them to thrive. Two of the 
children were set free in Jefferson's will.
  ``With the DNA testing confirming Jefferson paternity, the journey so 
competently and eloquently begun by Fawn Brodie with her best selling 
book entitled ``Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History'' has now reached 
its peak.''
  That is more than 15 years ago that Fawn Brodie, who was a professor 
at one of California universities, wrote a book called ``Thomas 
Jefferson: An Intimate History.'' The book was denounced by the 
Regional Daughters of Virginia, and a number of other historical groups 
denounced Fawn Brodie. But her set of facts, her documentation, was 
used to set in motion a process that has continued to today. And 
finally we have the DNA testing.
  ``Despite vicious criticisms from the establishment historians still 
prolonging the Confederate view of American history, Brodie's 
scholarship propelled the search for truth forward. While the 
relationship between Jefferson and Hemings was not her primary 
preoccupation, Brodie provided this story with a rightful proportion of 
the space,'' and she integrated the story of Sally Hemings with the 
rest of her narrative.
  ``Brodie's thorough account of Jefferson as a failing businessman on 
the brink of bankruptcy alongside the documentation of the continuous 
presentation of Sally Hemings may both raise and answer an obvious 
question: Why didn't Jefferson marry a wealthy widow or a daughter of a 
wealthy person to end his financial woes?'' I repeat. ``Brodie's 
thorough account of Jefferson as a failing businessman on the brink of 
bankruptcy alongside the documentation of the continuous presence of 
Sally Hemings may both raise and answer an obvious question: Why didn't 
Jefferson matter a wealthy widow or the daughter of a wealthy person to 
end his financial woes?
  ``With an eye more focused, and operating from a courtroom point of 
view, a more recent book by Annette Gordon-Bennett updates the work of 
Brodie, and with her remarkable presentation of the evidence, has 
stimulated the more recent debates which has helped produce the DNA 
testing. Now all sides must respond to the scientific evidence. In her 
book, `Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy,' 
Gordon-Bennett goes on to indict the establishment historians for their 
gross neglect of vital records.
  ``Barbara Chase-Riboud in the novel entitled `Sally Hemings,' '' 
which was written based on facts related in Fawn Brodie's nonfiction 
work, the novel by Barbara Chase-Riboud ``offers a uniquely constructed 
and very ambitious fictional account to interpret the relationship 
between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Her point of view 
repeatedly emerges crystal clear throughout the novel. Although her 
writing is often laborious and strained, she sometimes reaches dramatic 
heights in her depictions of emotions of her imagined victims of 
Jefferson's patriarchal and slave-owning powers. Chase-Riboud is able 
fictionally to occupy the bodies not souls of Sally and her children, 
and from within them she confronts what she imagines to be the cold 
blue insensitive eyes of the master of Monticello.''
  Chase-Riboud depicts Jefferson as a patronizing anti-woman, cruel 
oppressor.
  ``From this novelist, Jefferson is a white, southern aristocrat 
trapped within the personality parameters of his class and his time.'' 
That is her point of view. ``He is also a male chauvinist pig who raped 
and ruined a young slave girl who is left with no alternative except to 
`love him to death.'

[[Page 4531]]

  ``Chase-Riboud forces Sally to become a drug to afflict the addict 
Jefferson til death parts them. The merits of Jefferson's public 
achievements and historic accomplishments can never offset his intimate 
behavior flaws in the opinion of Barbara Chase-Riboud,'' who is a 
female story teller of African descent.

                              {time}  1745

  Each day since the new DNA discovery, I read or hear the same kind of 
intense condemnations of Jefferson, although they are usually more 
blunt and crude and they lack the redeeming eloquence of Barbara Chase-
Riboud.
  I hear them from African-American females who want to dismiss 
Jefferson and forget about the fact that Jefferson was a precursor to 
Lincoln and the whole idealistic bold advance of Jefferson made it 
possible to create an America which would later emancipate its slaves.
  I am compelled personally to register intense disagreement with 
Chase-Riboud and all those others who want to knock Jefferson off his 
pedestal for that reason. There are people on the other side, the 
conservatives and the Confederates, who want to dismiss Jefferson now 
because, if he did have a serious relationship with a slave, then he 
does not deserve to remain in their pantheon. But let me deal with 
those who are African American who refuse to accept Jefferson for what 
he really is and what he did contribute both to America and to the 
emancipation of the slaves.
  Any interpretation of the Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 
relationship that discounts or trivializes Jefferson as an idealist, a 
visionary, an intellectual, a pragmatic statesman and a crafty 
Machiavellian politician is not acceptable in my view. He was an 
idealist and his ideals are still very important to what happened, the 
sequence of events that took place in America, even those that led to 
the Emancipation Proclamation. The fact that such a giant as Thomas 
Jefferson chose to keep Sally Hemings at his side for 38 years opens 
the door to a myriad of magnificent questions: Does the length of the 
relationship despite the inconvenience caused by public exposure and 
scandal clearly show that it was not a lust but a love relationship? If 
he did not ``love'' Sally Hemings, then why did he not just keep her as 
a concubine while he married a woman of wealth to solve his ever 
present financial problems? Would a confirmation of his deep love for 
Sally Hemings not also clarify a number of the other riddles and 
contradictions which are related to this so-called ``sphinx''? The last 
great book on Jefferson was called ``The Sphinx.''
  The same youthful Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of 
Independence, with an original draft that condemned slavery, also set 
forth a racist platform in the book called ``Notes on the State of 
Virginia.'' I repeat. The same youthful Jefferson who wrote the 
Declaration of Independence, with an original draft that condemned 
slavery, also set forth a racist platform in ``Notes on the State of 
Virginia.'' As a young Congressman, however, Jefferson led the fight to 
stop the spread of slavery into the new States. He led the fight to 
stop the spread of slavery, and he lost that by one vote, by the way. 
He lost that bill by one vote. He stated that slaves had a limited 
capacity for learning. Nevertheless, Jefferson urged at one time that 
slaves should be educated and then set free. In the oppressive social 
and political environment of Virginia, why did Jefferson speak out of 
both sides of his mouth? Why were there contradictions? Why did 
Jefferson not just settle down comfortably as a pure acknowledged slave 
owner and racist? In his philosophical restlessness and his discontent 
with his own public positions, one can find the wellsprings of 
Jefferson's greatness. The politician in his pronouncements surrendered 
to his peers while privately he subscribed to greater truths. His love 
for Sally was probably a constant internal irritant. This lifelong 
reverence for his chambermaid is also a vital and legitimate clue to 
what he personally believed with respect to the equality of the races.
  I said that Jefferson was an idealist, he was a visionary, he was an 
intellectual, but he was also a pragmatic statesman and a crafty 
Machiavellian politician. Jefferson founded the first political party 
in America. Jefferson united with a guy called Aaron Burr who most 
people did not trust to form the first political party in America. 
Aaron Burr, true to his reputation, later betrayed Jefferson, but that 
was necessary to get an opposition party going to the Federalists. 
Jefferson pretended he was not interested in being elected President, 
while he was plotting all the time to become President and successfully 
managed to become President. Jefferson was a politician, and I do not 
find the fact that he made contradictory statements to be a great 
puzzle. He is not a sphinx to me. Politicians do make contradictory 
statements all the time. Unfortunately that happens and we say it is in 
order to achieve some more noble goal that we distort the truth or we 
do not tell what we really think. But Jefferson was not only a 
politician, he was a southern politician. He was rooted in the 
plantation culture of Virginia. Consider all that and consider the fact 
that he still led the fight on the floor of the House of 
Representatives to stop the spread of slavery into the other States.
  In the Virginia environment where slavery escalated downward into an 
ever more savage and criminal institution, did Jefferson's attachment 
to Sally and her children keep the embers of his antislavery sentiments 
burning? If there was some way that we could miraculously recover the 
missing letters of Jefferson, would we find corrections of his most 
racist utterings? Would we find apologies to Sally Hemings? Would we 
find expressions of his great love for Sally in his own insightful 
words?
  Jefferson, while he was President, also later narrowly fought for and 
narrowly passed the legislation which ended the importation of slaves 
into the country. That was very difficult. It took his son-in-law, 
Randolph. His son-in-law Randolph had to help him a great deal to pass 
that legislation. It is probable that the recent DNA clarification will 
generate more than new scholarly debates among academicians. More 
fictional interpretations in poetry and novels and drama are inevitable 
in the quest to fill in the gaps of a tale that is about both love and 
power. I think that the accounts of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 
the story of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, the history of Thomas 
Jefferson and Sally Hemings is now at the point where it is a bit of a 
legend and it will take on all the trappings of a legend, and Barbara 
Chase-Riboud's novel will not be the last novel. There will be many 
novels, there will be many plays, there will be other kinds of things 
done in connection with this love story which also tells a whole lot 
about power in America and about the idealism and the kind of people 
who helped to make this Nation great, the kind of person who helped to 
twist events in a way which led the way, established the prerequisite 
for what later happened with Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation.
  As much as he was the author of the Declaration of Independence, the 
third President of the United States and the purchaser of the Louisiana 
Territory, Thomas Jefferson was also the concerned father of several 
children of African descent. With unfortunate limitations and 
restraints, the evidence is that Jefferson loved his common-law wife 
and his children. He was not a brilliant, cold-blooded beast. The 
hypocrisy he felt compelled to perpetrate certainly created a personal 
life wracked with intense conflicts.
  Jefferson's public statements on race and slavery often stand in 
opposition to his private passion and compassion. However, when his 
intimate relationship with Sally is affixed to selected public actions, 
it is clear that he consciously made a vital contribution to the 
abolition of slavery. There are many who contend that without 
Jefferson, there could never have been an emancipating Abraham Lincoln. 
Congressman Jefferson attempted to halt the expansion of slavery into 
new States and failed by one vote in the House of Representatives. As 
President he narrowly won a victory for a law

[[Page 4532]]

that finally ended the legal importation of slaves. It is also 
important to note that Jefferson's advocacy for the rights of the 
common white man had to take roots before Lincoln could fight the war 
that freed the slaves. Let me repeat. It is also important to note that 
Jefferson's advocacy for the rights of the common white man had to take 
roots before Lincoln could fight the war that freed the slaves.
  Jefferson was quoted by the slave mongers as well as by the 
abolitionists as they made their cases during his time, or shortly 
after his death and up to the Civil War, into the Civil War. Both sides 
claimed Jefferson. Until today he is still cited by racists as well as 
progressives. The new DNA clarification of his paternity of Sally 
Hemings' children may finally end this ideological tug of war. In a 
superficial response, the races may jettison the man who treated the 
slave mother of his children as if she were his common-law wife.
  A more profound response from progressives in general and African 
Americans specifically would be a new celebration of Jefferson as the 
prerequisite to Lincoln. It is an historical fact that one of 
Jefferson's proteges, Edward Coles, took his slaves from Virginia to 
Illinois where he gave them their freedom and acres of land. Edward 
Coles later became governor of Illinois, he defeated a referendum 
seeking to make Illinois a slave State, and he was an active politician 
in Illinois at the time of Lincoln's election and at the time of the 
Civil War. More than mere words and ideas connected Thomas Jefferson to 
Abraham Lincoln.
  Celebrations of the new Jefferson discoveries and expressions of 
gratitude to the science of genetics which produced DNA testing I think 
are very much in order. What the historians and the researchers of 
several generations refused to examine objectively has now been 
determined to be almost certainly true. The white male southern 
academicians who have dominated the interpretation of pre and post 
Civil War history have now been thoroughly discredited. Their refusal 
to accept overwhelming evidence with respect to Jefferson, of 
necessity, raises serious questions about the integrity of the rest of 
their scholarship.
  Some obvious indictments of these proponents of the Confederate view 
of history are now in order. The establishment historians are guilty of 
ignoring the record of widespread miscegenation fostered by white men 
and its implications. Mainstream scholars have refused to offer any 
meaningful expositions of the ``breeding farm'' industry, for example. 
On the other hand, post-Civil War terrorism and violence by the 
defeated rebels has been glorified. ``The Birth of a Nation'' movie was 
an interpretation that has never been answered by academicians with a 
true and thorough story of the terrorism, the murder and the mayhem 
which returned the blacks of the South to a state of semi-slavery. I am 
talking about what a Truth and Reconciliation Commission could have 
accomplished. Instead of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we had 
John Wilkes Booth. We had Booth assassinating Lincoln. We had Andrew 
Johnson, who took over at that point, the last thing he wanted was 
truth, and as a result we had a downward slide back into the era when 
terror, murder and mayhem for the blacks in the South returned, and it 
took us another 100, or more than 100 years to get back to restoring 
the civil rights of the African-American population, certainly of the 
South.
  If we had some truth, if we had some honest historians to shed some 
light along the way on some of these things, we might have made 
different kinds of public policy decisions and, of course, the reason I 
am here today is because there is a definite connection. Our present 
race problems, our present serious race problems as far as African 
Americans are concerned are rooted in 232 years of slavery. There are 
still people who make speeches about African Americans being inferior, 
African Americans are prone to criminal activities, African Americans 
are generally not as well off as other people. Even immigrants who came 
to this country much later than the African Americans have accumulated 
more wealth. There are answers to all of these assertions, to all of 
these misstatements of fact. There are answers, but unless you have a 
concerted, systematic pursuit of truth, you are never going to be able 
to establish the answers which will allow us to have meaningful public 
policymaking.
  In summary, the recent kingpin discovery which confirms the common-
law marriage relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 
has generated new demands for more historical truth to support current 
reconciliation between whites and African Americans. I am saying that 
the recent kingpin discovery which confirms the common-law marriage 
relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings has generated 
new demands for more historical truth to support current reconciliation 
between whites and African Americans.

                              {time}  1800

  Madam Speaker, I believe that the truth can support reconciliation. I 
do not think the truth has to be a generator of more hostility and ill 
will.
  Since there was no Truth In Reconciliation Commission established 
following the Civil War, it would be wise to currently create a 
substitute project. That has come as close as we can to a Truth In 
Reconciliation Commission. We did not have the advantage of the South 
African Nation has when it tried to get rid of a large part of the 
baggage and the garbage related to racial oppression, the 
victimization, the response to the victimization, the people seeking 
revenge. All kinds of poison existed that the South African government 
is trying to get rid of by establishing a Truth In Reconciliation 
Commission. We had no such commission following the Civil War.
  Instead of a comprehensive approach similar to the Truth In 
Reconciliation Commission and instead of a comprehensive approach, 
which was attempted by the President's Commission on Race, it is 
recommended that smaller components of the overall problem of U.S. race 
relations be explored separately. I recommend that we have this kind of 
Nobel Prize guided winner, guided truth-seeking group who would write 
an objective history for us of slavery. I would recommend that it be 
explored in segments. An objective rewrite of the history of slavery in 
America constitutes a productive beginning. They may want to go back 
and write the history of slavery for all times. They may want to write 
the history of the exploitation and the destruction of the Indian 
Nations, the Native Americans, on this continent. They may want to get 
segments in order to help tell the whole story. But certainly the 
history of slavery in America would constitute a productive beginning, 
an objective history of what it was all about. You know, what does it 
mean to keep people for 232 years in bondage, what was the cruelty, and 
the abuse of children and the attempt to obliterate the humanity of 
human beings? What were the consequences of that?
  And as I said earlier, a consortium of foundations could finance such 
a sweeping study, and Nobel Prize winning scholars throughout the world 
could be recruited to supervise such a study and to guarantee the 
objectivity of such a study. In that demonstration of extraordinary and 
original insight into the dynamics of civilization development and 
nation building the recently formed government of South Africa, the 
government of Nelson Mandela, has pointed the way out of 
contradictions, the way out of conflicts and enmities which heretofore 
had seemed to be inevitable. To avoid the endless sufferings and social 
retardations inflicted by lies, guilt and preoccupations with revenge, 
nations must labor vigorously. The process of striving must be 
supported systematically and with adequate resources by governments. 
Since America has not yet matched the South Africans in their 
recognition of the power of this approach, let us imagine the ghost of 
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings holding hands as they hover over us. 
We must strive harder to acquire insights from the emotion laden and 
sociologically complex legend of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.

[[Page 4533]]

  Madam Speaker, let me close by saying that I applaud and congratulate 
the University of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation 
for a conference which they held on the weekend of March 5 which 
brought together 20 scholars from all over the Nation to explore the 
meaning of the relationship of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings for 
American history, and they intend to publish an entire series of 
writings on this subject. The University of Virginia and the Thomas 
Jefferson Memorial Foundation are moving in the right direction to take 
an objective fact of history and use that fact of history for a very 
positive purpose. If it helps America to seek reconciliation among the 
races, then it will have made a great contribution.
  Madam Speaker, before we can have reconciliation, we need to have 
truth, and the truth of the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and 
Sally Hemings is a magnificent truth that should be thoroughly 
examined.
  The article referred to follows:

        Kingpins for truth and reconciliation: Thomas and Sally


  dna evidence confirming Jefferson's relationship with sally Hemings 
 could open the door for a more profound dialogue on slavery and race 
                               relations

       Only a few months after the release of the report of the 
     Advisory Board of the President's Initiative on Race entitled 
     One America In The 21st Century: Forging A New Future, a 
     scientific report has confirmed the likelihood that President 
     Thomas Jefferson was the father of the children of his slave 
     and long-time companion, Sally Hemings. These two events can 
     be constructively related.
       The new discussions of the life, philosophy and politics of 
     Thomas Jefferson might do more to facilitate an honest 
     assessment of black-white relations in America than this fact 
     laden official report. Or reviewed together these two 
     developments could greatly enhance our understanding of an 
     extremely complex phenomenon. The weakness of the report of 
     the President's Advisory Board is that it is thorough about 
     the obvious, but it lacks the vital ingredient of profundity. 
     The report is competent, respectful, universal in its 
     coverage, balanced and not at all an embarrassment to the 
     White House; however, when the depth of the deliberations is 
     measured against the complexity of the mission and the 
     intensity of the challenge, the appropriate grade for this 
     noble but feeble effort would be a B- or a C+.
       Our national dialogue would be greatly benefitted by the 
     establishment of several adequately funded Commissions on 
     group relations. Native Americans certainly deserve their own 
     separate historical documentation and analysis. African 
     Americans require no less than an objective statement of 
     history, a thorough and comprehensive study, as the basis for 
     unraveling the many complexities of our present interaction 
     with mainstream society. Contrary to the beliefs of many 
     African Americans as well as others, current policy making 
     would be greatly enhanced by a world class study of American 
     slavery and the thwarted reconstruction effort. Such a study 
     would be useful if it is done in the spirit of ``truth and 
     reconciliation''. The noble embryo that the President's 
     initiative has planted should be allowed to sprout and grow. 
     Using the bully pulpit of the White House the President 
     should call on private Foundations to finance such a world 
     class project, and he should recommend that the world's top 
     scholars and thinkers, including Nobel Prize winners, be 
     recruited to provide research and editorial guidance.
       One of the first items that should be placed on the 
     research and analysis agenda is the controversial question of 
     the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. 
     It would be a human interest case study offering great 
     illuminations for American history. It could also be an 
     educational landmark love story that captures the attention 
     of a mass audience and forces them to confront the 
     institution of slavery in all of its dimensions. The 
     scientific validation of Jefferson's paternity with respect 
     to the Hemings children is a historical blockbuster. DNA 
     evidence has exposed the fact that respected academicians and 
     historians have promulgated or tolerated a dangerous and 
     suffocating denial of certain self-evident truths about 
     American history.
       This same distortion process applies to too much of 
     American history as it relates to slavery, the civil war and 
     reconstruction. Unlike the very civilized behavior of the new 
     rulers of South Africa, the United States has never had a 
     Truth And Reconciliation Commission. As part of a larger 
     effort the story of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings could 
     provide a potent spark to generate a bonfire of new 
     revelations which will increase the possibility of long-term 
     improved black-white reconciliation.
       The story of Thomas and Sally may be summarized as follows: 
     While Jefferson was serving as the American Ambassador in 
     Paris, Sally Hemings arrived as the maid for his youngest 
     daughter who sailed from Virginia to join her father. 
     Jefferson seduced her and the pregnant Sally returned to 
     America only after she promised that all of her children 
     would be set free. Under French law she could have remained 
     as a free person in France. During the fist year of his 
     presidency a journalist exposed the fact that Jefferson had a 
     slave mistress who was the mother of his children. The third 
     President of the U.S. refused to answer this charge. He also 
     never removed Sally Hemings from Monticello. They were 
     together for 38 years at Monticello until Jefferson died. 
     Three of their children were allowed to ``run'' and two were 
     set free in Jefferson's will.
       With the DNA test confirming Jefferson paternity, the 
     journey, so completely and eloquently begun by Fawn M. Brodie 
     with her best selling Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, 
     has now reached its peak. Despite vicious criticisms from the 
     establishment historians still promulgating the Confederate 
     view of American history, Brodie's scholarship propelled the 
     search for truth forward. While the relationship between 
     Jefferson and Hemings was not her primary preoccupation, she 
     provided this story with a rightful proportion of the space, 
     and she integrated it with the rest of her narrative. 
     Brodie's thorough account of Jefferson as a failing business 
     man on the brink of bankruptcy alongside the documentation of 
     the continuous presence of Sally Hemings may both raise and 
     answer an obvious question: Why didn't Jefferson marry a 
     wealthy widow or daughter and end his financial woes?
       With an eye more focused, and operating from a court room 
     point-of-view, Annette Gordon-Bennett updates the work of 
     Brodie, and with her remarkable presentation of the evidence, 
     has stimulated the more recent debates which have helped to 
     produce the DNA testing. Now all sides must respond to the 
     scientific evidence. In her book, Thomas Jefferson and Sally 
     Hemings: An American Controversy, Gordon-Bennett goes on to 
     indict the establishment historians for their gross neglect 
     of vital records.
       Barbara Chase Riboud in the novel, Sally Hemings, offers a 
     uniquely constructed and very ambitious fictional attempt to 
     interpret the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally 
     Hemings. Her point-of-view repeatedly emerges crystal clear 
     throughout the novel. Although her writing is often laborious 
     and strained, she sometimes reaches dramatic heights in her 
     depictions of the emotions of her imagined victims of 
     Jefferson's partiarchal and slave owning powers. Chase-Riboud 
     is able to occupy the bodies and souls of Sally and her 
     children, from within them she confronts what she imagines to 
     be the cold blue insensitive eyes of the master of 
     Monticello.
       For this novelist Jefferson is a white, Southern aristocrat 
     trapped within the personality parameters of his class and 
     his time. He is also a male chauvinist pig who raped and 
     ruined a young slave girl who is left with no alternative 
     except to ``love him to death.'' Chase-Riboud forces Sally to 
     become a drug to afflict the addict Jefferson til death parts 
     them. The merits of Jefferson's public achievements and 
     historic accomplishments can never offset his intimate 
     behavior flaws in the opinion of this female storyteller of 
     African descent. Each day since the new DNA discovery I read 
     or hear such intense condemnations of Jefferson although they 
     are usually more blunt and crude, and lack the redeeming 
     eloquence of Ms. Chase-Riboud.
       This male writer of African descent is compelled to 
     register intense disagreement with Chase-Riboud and any 
     interpretation of the Thomas and Sally relationship that 
     discounts or trivializes Jefferson as an idealist, a 
     visionary, an intellectual, a pragmatic statesman and a 
     crafty Machiavellian politician. The fact that such a giant 
     chose to keep Sally Hemings at his side for thirty eight 
     years opens the door to a myriad of magnificent questions: 
     Does the length of the relationship, despite the 
     inconvenience caused by public exposure and scandal, clearly 
     show that it was not a lust, but a love relationship? If he 
     did not ``love'' Sally, then why didn't he just keep her as a 
     concubine while he married a woman of wealth to solve his 
     ever present financial problems? Would a confirmation of his 
     deep love for Sally not clarify a number of other riddles and 
     contradictions related to this ``Sphinx''?
       The same youthful Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of 
     Independence, with an original draft that condemned slavery, 
     also set forth a racist platform in Notes On The State of 
     Virginia. As a young Congressman he led the fight to stop the 
     spread of slavery into the new states. He stated that slaves 
     had a limited capacity for learning, nevertheless, he urged 
     at one time that slaves should be educated and then set free. 
     In the oppressive social and political environment of 
     Virginia why didn't Jefferson just settle down comfortably as 
     a pure acknowledged racist? In his philosophical restlessness 
     and his discontent with his own public positions one can find 
     the well springs of his greatness. The politician in his 
     pronouncements surrendered to his peers while privately he 
     subscribed to greater truths. His love for Sally was probably 
     a constant internal irritant. This lifelong reverence for his 
     chamber maid is also a legitimate and vital clue to

[[Page 4534]]

     what he personally believed with respect to the equality of 
     the races.
       In the Virginia environment where slavery escalated 
     downward into an ever more savage and criminal institution, 
     did Jefferson's attachment to Sally and her children keep the 
     embers of his anti-slavery sentiments burning? If there was 
     some way that we could miraculously recover the missing 
     letters of Jefferson would we find corrections of his most 
     racist utterings? Would we find apologies to Sally Hemings? 
     Would we find expressions of his great love for Sally in his 
     own insightful words?
       It is probable that the recent DNA clarification will 
     generate more than new scholarly debates among academicians. 
     More fictional interpretations in poetry, novels, and drama 
     are inevitable in the quest to fill in the gaps of a tale 
     that is about both love and power. The long term fascination 
     of this writer with Jefferson and Hemings has inspired a play 
     which is presently being considered for production and 
     publication. All quotes utilized below in this exposition are 
     taken from the manuscript of the play, Thomas and Sally.
       In Act I, Scene 9 of Thomas and Sally, Jefferson recalls 
     his initial seduction of Sally following his wrenching 
     breakup with Maria Cosway in Paris:
       Jefferson: Your mind is as splendid as your beautiful face, 
     Sally. Soon, you may become my French teacher. But not today. 
     In my present condition your energy would be too much for me.
       Sally: I am so sorry that you have no time to talk to me. 
     When we sit and chat, for a tiny while, you make me feel that 
     it is Christmas morning.
       Jefferson: How interesting. You think of Christmas when you 
     talk to me. But always when I see you it is the image of 
     Easter that rises in my mind. Always you remind me of Spring 
     with seeds bursting and flowers blooming. I have been leaving 
     early and I have missed you. Tomorrow we will practice French 
     together again. But not now. Today I am like a dog exhausted 
     after chasing a bone that finally had no meat on it. For some 
     women the ultimate excitement is to lead a man through a 
     maze, forever pulling him at a faster pace until . . . Set 
     the tea down here, Sally, and leave me. I want to be alone. . 
     . .
       Sally: Yes, Marse Tom, I will go. But you look sick, sir. 
     (Begins to walk slowly toward the door while Jefferson lowers 
     his head into his hands again.)
       Jefferson: Wait, Sally! (He suddenly raises his head and 
     calls after her.) Come and sit for a minute. (Motions toward 
     a chair near him.) Just for a minute. It is so cold in here.
       Sally: (Pushing into the chair.) Yes, Marse Tom, I will sit 
     with you.
       Jefferson: It is cold and your eyes are like two suns. 
     Always they seem so bright and full of heat.
       Sally: No, Marse Tom, your eyes are bright. I see the sun 
     coming out of your eyes.
       Jefferson: What you see in me is the reflection of your own 
     eyes.
       Sally: Slaves are not supposed to look into the eyes of 
     masters, but you always make me look into your eyes, Marse 
     Tom. I try hard to turn away, but you make it so hard for me 
     not to look into your eyes. Please excuse me, sir. . . .
       Jefferson: I did not mention Maria Cosway. Aha! You have 
     been spying on me, Sally. You are a naughty child.
       Sally: Please, Marse Tom, do not call me a child. And I am 
     sorry that I called the name of the English woman. I do not 
     spy on you. But I do watch you. I watch everywhere you go, 
     whatever you do. I listen to everything you say.
       Jefferson: I am not angry, Sally. I called you a spy in 
     jest. I have seen you watching me. And you have my permission 
     to call the name of the English woman. We have seen the last 
     of Maria Cosway. I will never follow her through that 
     mysterious maze again.
       Sally: Maze? Is that the same as the labyrinth thing, Marse 
     Tom?
       Jefferson: A maze, a labyrinth, a wolf-trap, a deadly bear 
     hug, a snare, quicksand in a swamp. She was all of these 
     crushed into one.
       Sally: She fiddled with your heart. She led you around the 
     mulberry bush. Maria Cosway was a mean woman, Marse Tom. 
     Marse Tom! Your face is turning red like fire! . . .
       Jefferson: (Raising his head abruptly.) Please, Sally, lay 
     your hands on my head again. Massage the back of my neck. 
     Your hands are so warm.
       Sally: Yes, Marse Tom, I will rub your head; I will rub 
     your neck. Come back to life, Marse Tom. Do not leave me!
       Jefferson: (Abruptly standing and pushing Sally down until 
     he towers over her and gazes down at her with a look of 
     astonishment.) Two suns are set in your eyes. And those same 
     eyes are filled with Virginia. There is no limit to what your 
     eyes can hold. I see the world when it first came. I see the 
     world going on forever. It is all there without 
     embellishment, without ornaments. It's all there shining in 
     your eyes. It shines even through your tears. (Bends down to 
     kiss her head. She responds by throwing her arms around his 
     long legs.). . . .
       At the end of a failed attempt to separate him from Sally 
     by banning her from the Monticello mansion the two lovers are 
     united:
       Scene thirteen: Sally joins Jefferson in the bedroom. 
     Jefferson is first alone. He has placed a light in a small 
     window above his bed.
       Jefferson: Come, sweet Sally, and bring me peace. The force 
     of my feeling gives me direction. Let it be disease, 
     affliction, addiction; you are a habit I will pursue. No 
     surgeon can cut me free of you. If I am blind then I never 
     want to see. If this is rape then I declare that all 
     husbands, with their wedding night madness, are similarly 
     guilty. Thomas and Sally are one. In what language does God 
     require the marriage license? Is he satisfied to see the vows 
     written on men's hearts; or do only wedding gowns and 
     hypocritical ceremonies move him? Am I condemned because of 
     my oath of monogamy is unregistered? Is it some base 
     perversion that leads me to discern that nothing is more 
     delicious than fidelity?
       (Sally emerges from the floor climbing up from the stairs 
     at the foot of Jefferson's bed. She is draped in a black 
     cloak on the upper part of her body but below the knees a 
     white night gown can be seen.)
       Jefferson: (Throwing open his arms as he moves toward her.) 
     Ma Cherie! My magnificent flower!
       Sally: (Leaping into his arms.) Like a baby rabbit racing 
     for its mother I came running. Please excuse me but my legs 
     leaped forward all on their own. I could not hold back one 
     minute more. I have waited so long for the lamp in the window 
     to light my way back to you.
       Jefferson: Please forgive me. You have been humiliated for 
     the last time. I beg you! Forgive me! (Falls to his knees and 
     throws his arms around her legs.)
       Sally: Mon Cher, please don't greet me on your knees. Don't 
     drown my mind in fancy pleas. Just squeeze me close. (He 
     rises and envelopes her in his arms.) Speak to me with the 
     strength in your hands and arms. I have been a lost orphan 
     without your love to surround me.
       Jefferson: My Sweet Angel, look at Monticello. (Begins to 
     speak French.) C'est un chateau tres incomplete. Mais un 
     jour, je le finirai totalement. Monticello est ton chateau, 
     Sally. You will never be driven from your castle again. I 
     swear it to you, sweet Sally. You demand nothing but this is 
     my gift to you. No one, not even Martha, shall ever take 
     Monticello away from you again. I swear it!
       Sally: Please do not swear again. I do not need another 
     oath. Make no promises except one.
       Promise you will love me like the green grass grows. The 
     grass is forever.
       Jefferson: I will love you forever, Sally. We are one. Now, 
     tell me that you forgive me. Promise that you will love me 
     forever.
       Sally: Oh my sweet Cher, how can I answer you? I can't 
     match your basket of fancy words. Just look into my eyes and 
     real all of your answers. You see my pain. You alone know how 
     much I hurt. I can see the understanding in your eyes. The 
     heavy beating of your heart is sending me a message. As much 
     as I have missed you, you have missed me. You still Love me. 
     The election, your daughters, the planters, the guests; 
     nothing has been enough to block your path back to me. The 
     message is so simple, Mon Cher. You still love me. And I 
     promise to love you forever.
       Jefferson: The world is as it is. Let the violent variables 
     swirl around us in chaos. You, sweet Angel, shall be my 
     constant. Everlasting you are mine!
       Sally: You have recited enough of your sweet speeches 
     tonight. Take me to our bed. Your cold sheets are waiting to 
     be warmed. (Sally takes off her black cloak and stands in her 
     white nightgown before Jefferson carries her to the bed.)
       In Act I, Scene 25, Jefferson is forced to justify his love 
     for Sally to his jealous daughter, Martha:
       Martha: I did not like her. Perhaps I was jealous of every 
     female in your life. But Maria Cosway was an elegant lady. 
     Sally was nothing. You remade Sally. Why did you select 
     Sally?
       Jefferson: An architect can read his own blueprint easily; 
     but it is not always possible for a man to decipher his soul.
       Martha: You told her the right books to read in your 
     library. You coached her until she learned to speak French 
     better than me. You let her reign supreme over all the 
     servants. Sally was nothing but mud. But you diligently 
     molded her into your favorite statue.
       Jefferson: To some degree maybe I did mold her. But God 
     alone could teach her to burst into a room like a morning 
     glory; to bloom as the reddest rose commanding every eye; to 
     stand as the sunflower in every crowd; to always be the lily 
     who lights up a dark pond of tears. Sally is what nature and 
     God and I have made together. And so is Patsy. You are 
     separate and distinct but blessed be the priceless two of 
     you. Sally extracts nothing from Patsy.
       Martha: Why love, Father? Why not just let it be lust? The 
     South is littered with mulattos but white men don't treat 
     their mothers like wives.
       Jefferson: Tonight, Patsy, I beg you to be my daughter. I 
     have only two of you. I have

[[Page 4535]]

     hundreds of inquisitors. Do not insult me. Do not degrade me 
     with conventional accusations. If you have ears, then hear 
     me. I need more than pleasure! Watching loved ones die maims 
     the spirit, cripples the soul; even the strongest among us 
     are never fully rehabilitated. There is but one antidote to 
     such despair and most men never find her. Life and joy are 
     for the living (pauses) but we disabled souls require 
     magnificent assistance. Sally is my magnificent assistance. 
     Inspiration is that which completes a man; supplies drive and 
     ambition; stimulates vision; absorbs despair. She who 
     inspires is sacred. Sally is sacred.
       The fact that an aging Jefferson could not separate himself 
     from Sally raises questions less about sexual addiction and 
     more about the magic and magnetism of Sally Hemings. She 
     obviously had more than her beautiful body to offer. Why are 
     all records of Sally so thoroughly and meticulously missing? 
     In his seventies and eighties why did Jefferson still find 
     her company indispensable? Since her continued existence 
     posed an obvious embarrassing threat to Jefferson's heirs, 
     how did Sally manage to outwit them and survive? And is it 
     not obvious that both the father and the mother had to be 
     involved in the arrangements made for the big city survival 
     of their children who were allowed to ``run''? For a lifetime 
     Thomas and Sally did more than merely sleep together. But 
     what was it that made Sally ``sacred'' in the eyes of 
     Jefferson?
       All traces of Sally Hemings have been scrubbed from 
     Jefferson's writings and from history. Fiction writers thus 
     have great latitude in the challenge to recreate this central 
     character. She may be glimpsed through her own speeches:
       In Act I, Scene 16, on the day she learns of the public 
     charges that she is the President's mistress and the mother 
     of his children:
       Sally: Marse Tom don't want to know what's happening here. 
     Marse Tom won't look down at the dirt. Marse Tom rather gaze 
     up at the skies. He always goes in person to buy slaves. But 
     you won't see him around when slaves are sold. But Marse Tom 
     is many men all squeezed into one. He is the owl and the 
     eagle, the fox and the sheep, rose and thorn, still pond and 
     flooding river. God was straining hard the day he made Marse 
     Tom . . . The closer you watch Marse Tom, the less you 
     understand him. I have seen him wave his hand at heaven and 
     thumb his nose at the angels. But some days he takes oaths 
     and swears under the watchful eyes of God. So much about him 
     stays in the dark. But why must we figure out the puzzle? Why 
     do you ask so many questions Millie? I just know in my bones 
     that Marse Tom is the grandest man that walks on this earth. 
     . . .
       Preacher Zeke: They say Marse Tom could be pushed out of 
     office. They say nobody will vote for him a second time. This 
     is bad, Miss Sally. Look right there in the paper. They 
     called you a concubine!
       Sally: Our love is right, Preacher. Your God, our Jesus 
     smiles down on Thomas and Sally. The newspapers are all wrong 
     and our love is right. He will not bend, Preacher. Marse Tom 
     will stand and fight.
       Preacher Zeke: Chief Justice Marshall, Patrick Henry, John 
     Adams! They have all come out against Marse Tom.
       Sally: You hear a hundred dirty puppies howling at the 
     heels of a mountain lion. My Master will never bow to them. 
     You watch, Preacher Zeke. Watch and see him strike with quiet 
     lightning. He will leave the puppies scattered across the 
     woods. He will stand in this storm. Pray to make him strong. 
     The God who gave me my love will not tease me and then take 
     him away. The Almighty who made me a slave would not torture 
     me twice. Pray the right prayer, Preacher. Make him like 
     David against Goliath; like Daniel in the lion's den; let him 
     be Samson. Give him the jawbone of an ass and let him beat 
     the Philistines down. For our love he will go up to the gates 
     of heaven and wrestle St. Peter himself. Pray, Preacher, 
     pray!
       Millie: Preacher Zeke, do they put corcupines in jail?
       Sally: Concubine, Millie? Not corcupine! The word is 
     concubine! Any woman that is used but not loved is a 
     concubine. Many waives are concubines. I am not a concu- 
     bine . . .
       In Act I, Scene 24, Sally confronts Jefferson's daughter:
       Martha: You are both reckless! Love has nothing to do with 
     it. My Father is first of all a man and men are prone to 
     allow their lust to place everything else in jeopardy.
       Sally: Be careful what you label lust. Lust is an easy pig 
     to feed. Men can drop their pants anywhere. My love gives 
     life to him. He says that he can sometimes only heal his 
     headaches by placing his head in my hands. He calls me his 
     magic and his medicine. . . .
       Martha: Yes, I hear you as a woman, tonight. But all these 
     years I have worked so hard to make you a thing. I could not 
     admit my Father had succumbed to a mere woman. You had to be 
     a soft, fuzzy, lustful creature that he took to bed to keep 
     himself warm; a witch to cure his manly madness; a slop jar 
     for his boiling male juices; a submissive sheep; a ravishing 
     werewolf; I made you anything in my mind but a woman. You 
     could not be human.
       Sally: Not human, Martha? But we played together as girls. 
     We have lived for twenty-three years within each other 
     shadows. I am your mother's slave sister, her half sister. 
     The father of your mother was my father. You are my niece, 
     Martha.
       Martha: Stop it! Don't remind me of the disgusting lust of 
     my maternal grandfather. Let me forget how our lives are 
     intermingled, miscegenated and tied together like insane 
     serpents.
       Sally: Consider the serpents, Martha. In the Spring when 
     certain snakes mate, they wrap themselves around each other 
     with passion. And neither snake supplies the poison to ruin 
     their great hug. You come to the love feast with fangs, 
     Martha! You bring the poison!
       Martha: Stop judging me! We are not as the gates of 
     heaven--and you are not St. Peter. You are not an angel 
     merely because you are a slave. Other women suffer too!
       Sally: Yes, Martha, admit it. We are both women. But after 
     tonight we will never suffer together again. Thomas Jefferson 
     is your Father. I give him all to you. To take him from me, 
     day and night you tear at him with sharp hooks in his mind. 
     Every axe and dagger you use. Sometimes you dump a heavy load 
     of reminders about your mother. Sometimes you paint me as a 
     demon. I am unlawful, illegal, sinful, the Jezebel dragging 
     him down to hell. But your spray of poison has not put out my 
     Master's passion. Our love is like an iron rock against all 
     of your heavy hammers. I win the battles but you keep 
     fighting the war. You can not take him from me. No woman can 
     take him from me--no daughter, no Washington ladies with all 
     of their lace and lovely speeches. No ghost of a wife long 
     gone. You have all failed. You can not take him, He is mine! 
     And since he is all mine I have the power to give him to you. 
     (Begins to cry.) For his sake I give him to you. Take your 
     Father and let me go!
       Martha: Sally, Father will be here soon. Perhaps you should 
     rest. You should not meet him with tears.
       Sally: Take him! To get at me you are driving him mad. You 
     will split his soul right down the middle. Preacher Zeke 
     tells the story of two women before King Solomon both 
     claiming a baby. Like the real mother standing before Solomon 
     my love is bigger than yours. Your Father has been split in 
     half too long. Take him! He should not have to wake up each 
     day and choose between me and you. I am my own butcher. I 
     choose to cut him free. I want him made whole again. The 
     country still needs him undivided. I stand on one side and 
     all the world weighs down against me. So heavy a sin will 
     surely drag me to the bottom of hell. . . .
       In Act I, Scene 26, declaring that she will leave 
     Monticello, Sally confronts Jefferson:
       Jefferson: Liberty and freedom are necessary to guarantee 
     the opportunity to love. Around your waist in a pouch are the 
     papers that validate freedom for you and each child. You are 
     not my slave, Sally, You don't have to stay if you do not 
     love me.
       Sally: In the dark you whisper over and over again that you 
     love me; at night I am your adored wife. But in the morning I 
     am again just a slave. At night I am everything. In the 
     morning I am nothing. Monticello you declared to be my castle 
     but when company comes I am the pussy cat who must crawl into 
     a corner or go hide in the bushes.
       Jefferson: You stab with a long rusty knife!
       Sally: Hear me til the sound of my voice makes you want to 
     puke. And then maybe you will never ever want to hear my 
     voice again.
       Jefferson: You speak from great pain, Sally. I honor your 
     suffering.
       Sally: To be a slave, night black or mulatto, is to live 
     always in pain. The days creep by so slowly for a slave--and 
     there is nothing to look forward to but more misery tomorrow. 
     If we slaves were wise we would punish all slave owners by 
     killing ourselves and destroying their property. If slaves 
     had a democratic government we would all go to the polls and 
     cast our ballots for a holiday of destruction; a grand day of 
     death. . . .
       Jefferson: Forgive me, Sally. I have written in riddles and 
     traveled in evasive circles for too long. I swear I will 
     someday set these matters straight.
       Sally: If you are truly my champion--and since you are the 
     powerful President of the United States, I most reverently 
     appeal to you to publicly whip the man who wrote these words 
     that I have copied from his book: (She reads from a piece of 
     paper.) ``Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but 
     no poetry; in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and 
     anomalous on. They secrete less by the kidneys, and more by 
     the glands of the skins, which give them a very strong and 
     disagreeable odor''. . . .
       Sally: And you will promise never to be mad at me for doing 
     what it was right to do. (Pause) I have a gift for you, Mon 
     Cher, a gift I bought in a Paris flea market. I bought this 
     from an old African who was selling carvings. He had a big 
     head and a face that could only have been chiseled by a very 
     strong angel. He was tall with big hands and long bony 
     fingers. (Pulls the cloth covering from a small black stone 
     carving.) See, it is a tiny family of a man, his wife and two 
     children--the way families must have been before the slave 
     catchers came. Take it! It was dreamed up by an inferior 
     ``dull, tasteless''

[[Page 4536]]

     black mind, and carved with inferior black physical fingers. 
     Take it and always remember that the Sally you once adored 
     was first of all a slave. I am Black Sally!
       Jefferson: Thank you Sally. But please do not remind me 
     that the trial is over.
       Sally: I sentence you to one day write that any being able 
     to bear the daily burdens of slavery and still be able to 
     laugh and to love is surly superior to all other human 
     beings.
       Jefferson: I swear that I shall truthfully instruct 
     posterity and work to shield them from the errors committed 
     by my generation.
       Sally: Say no more. (Holds a finger up to her lip.)
       Jefferson: As you wish, my divine inquisitor. The nobility 
     of Adam is best reflected by the fact that he made no attempt 
     to argue with his God. Adam quietly acknowledged his guilt 
     and he left the Garden of Eden. . . .
       In Act I, Scene 27, Sally reverses her decision to run away 
     from Monticello:
       Sally: I could take my children and live anywhere. I could 
     mop floors as a maid, or melt away in sweat cooking in some 
     lady's kitchen; or I would do well as a seamstress. I could 
     put plenty of food on my table for my children. Black Sally 
     could survive. But there would be no thread tough enough, no 
     needle big enough to sew up the aching hole in my heart.
       Martha: I promise you peace Sally. I shall never again 
     harass or insult you. In no way will I ever block or handicap 
     you in your pursuit of happiness at Monticello.
       Sally: The slave in me is beaten down and bitter, but I can 
     never be happy unless I stay hostage to my heart. Against the 
     hurricane of the heart the head is like a crippled fly. This 
     morning when I got out of bed I knew in my bones that I had 
     lost the battle. No woman can love him, be loved by him, and 
     them pick up and run away from Thomas Jefferson. It would 
     take an angel or some other being able to work miracles to 
     carry out such a deed. I'm only a woman. I love him. I can't 
     abandon him. (She takes up a pen and begins scribbling a 
     note.)
       Martha: In the end we must always remember that we are only 
     women; incomplete and not fully made without our men.
       Sally: We are women, and men are not fully finished until 
     we make them so.
       In Act II, Scene 3, Sally comforts an old, sick and dying 
     Jefferson:
       Jefferson: My dearest Magic Woman, now you are so kind as 
     to assign me another son when I have refused to claim the 
     sons you gave me.
       Sally: I didn't come to talk about that. Your morning is 
     cloudy enough already. Accept Edward Coles as a son from you 
     soul and celebrate.
       Jefferson: Why accept a son who publicly chides me and 
     privately mocks me with flattery.
       Sally: Sons do sometimes rebel and challenge their fathers.
       Jefferson: And sometimes children hate their fathers. I 
     have given ample cause to your Thomas and Harriet and Beverly 
     and Eston and Madison. Toward my own flesh I have behaved 
     abominably!
       Sally: (Screaming) Stop it! The world is as it is. In a 
     great burst of love you gave my children life. And later you 
     gave them their freedom. I asked for nothing else. You must 
     not torture yourself! If my children have suffered it is 
     because they were abandoned by their mother who wouldn't 
     carry them all at once to freedom because she couldn't bear 
     to leave her lover.
       Jefferson: My loud and powerful queen, I beg you not to 
     scream at this old man. My conscience is crammed with sins 
     that break out like blisters. Brains overloaded with living 
     and learning become grotesque. That I sometimes become 
     unhinged should not surprise you. Wrinkled hearts and musty 
     minds are not good company. Wise women do not waste their 
     love on old men.
       Sally: (almost whispering) Then I never want to be a wise 
     woman. Let me die a fool! Loving an old man is like loving a 
     baby. It is the best used time of your life. No need to have 
     a reason. The love just swells up all inside you and then 
     runs over in a flood. (She kneels beside his chair and begins 
     to caress and kiss him). . . .
       As much as he was the author of the Declaration of 
     Independence, the third President of the United States and 
     the purchaser of the Louisiana Territory, Thomas Jefferson 
     was also the concerned father of several children of African 
     descent. With unfortunate limitations and restraints the 
     evidence is that Jefferson loved his common-law wife and 
     children. He was not a brilliant, cold blooded beast. The 
     hypocrisy he felt compelled to perpetrate certainly created a 
     personal life wracked with intense conflicts.
       Jefferson's public statements on race and slavery often 
     stand in opposition to his private passion and compassion; 
     however, when his intimate relationship with Sally is affixed 
     to selected public actions, it is clear that he consciously 
     made a vital contribution to the abolition of slavery. There 
     are many who contend that without Jefferson there could never 
     have been an emancipating Abraham Lincoln. Congressman 
     Jefferson attempted to halt the expansion of slavery into new 
     states and failed by one vote in the House of 
     Representatives. As President he narrowly won a victory for a 
     law that finally ended the legal importation of slaves. It is 
     also important to note that Jefferson's advocacy for the 
     rights of the common white man had to take roots before 
     Lincoln could fight the war that freed the slaves.
       Jefferson was quoted by the slave mongers as well as the 
     Abolitionists as they made their cases. Until today he is 
     still cited by racists as well as progressives. The new DNA 
     clarification of his paternity of Sally Hemings' children may 
     finally end this ideological tug of war. In a superficial 
     response the racists may jettison the man who treated the 
     slave mother of his children as if she was his wife.
       A more profound response from progressives in general, and 
     African Americans specifically, would be a new celebration of 
     Jefferson as the pre-requisite to Lincoln. It is a historical 
     fact that one of Jefferson's proteges, Edward Coles, took his 
     slaves from Virginia to Illinois where he gave them their 
     freedom and acres of land. Coles later became Governor of 
     Illinois; defeated a referendum seeking to make Illinois a 
     slave state; and was an active politician in Illinois at the 
     time of Lincoln's election and the Civil War. More than mere 
     words and ideas linked Lincoln to Jefferson.
       Celebrations of the new Jefferson discoveries, and 
     expressions of gratitude to the science of genetics which 
     produced DNA testing are very much in order. What the 
     historians and researchers of several generations refused to 
     examine objectively has now been determined to be almost 
     certainly true. The white male southern academicians who have 
     dominated the interpretation of pre and post civil war 
     history have now been thoroughly discredited. Their refusal 
     to accept overwhelming evidence with respect to Jefferson, of 
     necessity, raises serious questions about the integrity of 
     the rest of their scholarship.
       Some obvious indictments of these proponents of the 
     Confederate view of history are now in order: The 
     establishment historians are guilty of ignoring the record of 
     widespread miscegenation fostered by White men and its 
     implications. Mainstream scholars have refused to offer any 
     meaningful expositions of the ``breeding farm'' industry. On 
     the other hand post civil war terrorism and violence by the 
     defeated rebels has been glorified. ``The Birth Of A Nation'' 
     interpretation has never been answered by academicians with a 
     true and thorough story of the terrorism, murder and mayhem 
     which returned the blacks of the South to a state of semi-
     slavery.

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