Recently, I visited schools in Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina, all states where legislators have passed laws and implemented executive orders restricting the teaching of so-called critical race theory. I was on tour to promote the newly released young readers’ edition, co-written with Sonja Cherry-Paul, of my 2021 book, How the Word Is Passed, which is about how slavery is remembered across America.
I began most of my school presentations with a similar exchange about Jefferson because, even today, millions of Americans have never been taught that the Founding Father was an enslaver, let alone that Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman, gave birth to at least six of Jefferson’s children (beginning when she was 16 and he was in his late 40s). Four of these children survived past childhood; Jefferson enslaved them until they were adults. Talking about this part of the American story with students is just as important as teaching them about Jefferson’s political accomplishments; to gloss over his moral inconsistencies would be to gloss over the moral inconsistencies of the country’s founding—and its present.
It can be hard for people to hear these things about Jefferson, I told the students; many Americans are frightened by the prospect of having to reconsider their long-held narratives about the country and their place in it. According to some of the docents I spoke with at Monticello while doing research for my book, many visitors to Jefferson’s Virginia-plantation home have balked at the site’s portrayal of Jefferson as an enslaver, accusing the museum of trying to be “politically correct,” “change history,” or “tear Jefferson down.”
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY OLIN BUSINESS SCHOOL
But the more complex version of the story is not all negative. Jefferson did a lot of good for many people, even as he also did a lot of harm to many people. America itself has helped many millions of people, even as it has also enacted violence on many millions of people.
-Cline Smith in The Atlantic
Things are starting to shut down and it’s not even winter yet. Holidays? If you wish. Explanations? Okay, but what’s the point? The sun and the moon are still in place, but no one seems to pay any attention. Not the best time to take chances, but we may have no choice.
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We always love singing and picking with our buddy bluegrass legend @dantyminski on the @officialdaileyvincent show! @rfdtv @smfchicken
I heard a new word today. That word is “persona.” Kind of a strange word to me. Are you a person or a persona? Can you be both, or must you choose one or the other?
A delightful and majestic reckoning with the ascent of American fiction in the twentieth century
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