{"id":57223,"date":"2019-01-05T01:31:30","date_gmt":"2019-01-05T01:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=57223"},"modified":"2019-01-05T01:32:18","modified_gmt":"2019-01-05T01:32:18","slug":"its-time-to-recognize-sally-hemings-as-a-first-lady-of-the-united-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=57223","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s time to recognize Sally Hemings as a first lady of the United States"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time to recognize Sally Hemings as a first lady of the United States<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Times<\/a>
\n2019-01-04<\/p>\n

Evelia Jones<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"It\u2019s<\/a>
\nA man reads a plaque about Sally Hemings<\/a> at Monticello<\/a>, Thomas Jefferson’s<\/a> estate in Charlottesville, Va.<\/a>, on Saturday, June 16, 2018. (Steve Ruark \/ Associated Press)<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

It is now widely understood that my ancestor Sally Hemings<\/a>, an enslaved black woman, was the intimate companion of Thomas Jefferson<\/a> for nearly four decades.<\/p>\n

Monticello<\/a>, the Virginia<\/a> plantation operated as a museum by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation<\/a>, acknowledged as much with a new exhibit<\/a> last year: Hemings\u2019 living quarters. The exhibit presents as fact that Hemings gave birth to at least six of Jefferson\u2019s children.<\/p>\n

Much about their relationship remains lost to history. We know that Hemings was Jefferson\u2019s property, and that in America she did not have the right<\/a> to refuse sexual advances from her owner. We also know that Hemings was able to negotiate freedom for her children and \u201cextraordinary privileges<\/a>\u201d for herself, and that she occupied a central place<\/a> in Jefferson\u2019s life…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After more than two centuries of willful collective ignorance about Jefferson and Hemings, it might sound far-fetched to suggest that she ought to be designated a first lady. But our country was populated through precisely this sort of racial mixing \u2014 sexual relationships that, it bears repeating, enslaved people such as Hemings did not choose for themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,459,8,6940,20,693,25],"tags":[29226,3909,24991,29225,918,13272,477],"class_list":["post-57223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-history","category-media-archive","category-slavery","category-usa","category-virginia","category-women","tag-evelia-jones","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-martha-jefferson","tag-martha-wayles-skelton-jefferson","tag-sally-hemings","tag-the-los-angeles-times","tag-thomas-jefferson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57223"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57225,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57223\/revisions\/57225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}