By now, many people have heard about the controversy surrounding the descendants of the two women with whom Thomas Jefferson had children: Martha Wayles, his wife of ten years, and her half-sister, Sally Hemings, who lived her life as a slave owned by the Jefferson family. It is less widely known that Eston Hemings, the youngest son of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, moved his family to Madison, Wisconsin, in 1852. In Madison, Eston changed his name to E. H. Jefferson. He, his wife, and their three children passed into white society and became successful in business. The 14 living descendants of Eston Hemings Jefferson, who lacked the oral family history that characterized the other Hemings descendants, only recently learned of their African heritage. Ironically, the recent DNA proof came through Eston’s line. Shannon Lanier, a descendant of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson through their son Madison Hemings, conducted interviews and gathered first-person statements from 38 Jefferson descendants. Some have always known their family history, some are just beginning to learn it, and others are having difficulty accepting their African American cousins. Accompanied by black-and-white photographs by Jane Feldman, the text makes a powerful comment on the racial issues that still face our nation. As one descendant, Lucian K. Truscott IV, says: “Hopefully, a day will come when this won’t be a story of land and blood and race. One day it will be a story of an American family.” (Age 10 and older)

Now available in ebook format--one of the important books that marked the beginning of the ongoing conversation about slavery and our nation's history.
 

From the sixth great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson and enslaved woman Sally Hemmings comes an anthology of Jefferson's living descendants.

Told in the style of a family photo album—with a combination of photographs and interviews—Jefferson’s Children is the riveting story of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemming’s sixth great-grandson, Shannon Lanier’s, travels across the country to meet his relatives from both sides of the family. The profiles contained chart the multiple perspectives of Jefferson’s and Hemming’s descendants, from those who embrace their heritage to those who want nothing to do with Jefferson’s legacy. A fascinating picture soon emerges, one that begins with a pairing of two individuals with vastly disparate levels of power—on the one side, the third president of the United States and the author of the Declaration of Independence; on the other, the woman who was his property—and that ultimately represents America’s complicated history with issues of diversity and race and the unusual ways in which we define family.

An ALA Best Book for Young Adults 

“The portraits that emerge are as generous and jumbled as America itself.” —The New York Times
 
“A book about American history, racial identity and the bonds of family that will help young people navigate these difficult areas.” —Black Issues Book Review