sally hemings

Thomas Jefferson, the "Sage of Monticello," the President most tied to his home and whose fingerprints are around every corner. Learn about Jefferson's pre-Presidency, his election and term, his family and scandals, as well as his iconic home!

Check out the website at VisitingthePresidents.com for visual aids, links, past episodes, recommended reading, and other information!
Episode Page: https://visitingthepresidents.com/2022/03/15/season-2-episode-3-thomas-jefferson-and-monticello/   

Season 1's Thomas Jefferson Episode-"Thomas Jefferson and Shadwell"

Season 3's Thomas Jefferson Episode-"Thomas Jefferson's Tomb"  

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Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. She's the author of six books, including The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Peter Onuf is the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Virginia. He's also author of numerous books, including most recently Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance. 

In 2017, these two giants in the history of the early American republic teamed up to publish the book at the heart of our discussion today, “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs”: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination. This book ranks among the most original and engaging studies of Thomas Jefferson and his times to appear in recent years. They join us today to discuss our third President, his life and times.

History must be viewed with a lens of the past. Times change, and thankfully, the world as a whole only continues to improve.

We must shine a light on the past to live more abundantly now. Historian Annette Gordon-Reed and painter Titus Kaphar lead us in an exploration of that as a public adventure in this conversation at the Citizen University annual conference. Gordon-Reed is the historian who introduced the world to Sally Hemings and the children she had with President Thomas Jefferson, and so realigned a primary chapter of the American story with the deeper, more complicated truth. Kaphar collapses historical timelines on canvas and created iconic images after the protests in Ferguson. Both are reckoning with history in order to repair the present.

Titus Kaphar is an artist whose work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions from the Savannah College of Art and Design and the Seattle Art Museum to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His 2014 painting of Ferguson protesters was commissioned by “TIME” magazine. He has received numerous awards including the Artist as Activist Fellowship from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and the 2018 Rappaport Prize.

Annette Gordon-Reed is the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School and a professor of history in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. Her books include “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family,” for which she won the Pulitzer Prize, and “‘Most Blessed of the Patriarchs’: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination.”

This interview originally aired in June 2017. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

I am excited to share this episode with you not only because Kevin is a dear friend from college but because he is one of the most delightful and interesting people I know!    Our conversation in this episode includes:   

• What it’s like for non-traditional and African American fathers battling stereotype expectations about fatherhood
• How men’s bodies change once they become fathers, including decreases in testosterone
• The “father culture” of Sweden
• Fathers in prison
• “Dead Broke” Dads
• Reforming child support to include the economic value of “time spent.”
• Spoken and unspoken rules about storytelling and its impact on society

Kevin Maillard (kevinmaillard.com) is Professor of Law at Syracuse University and a contributing editor to the New York Times.  He specializes in Family Law, Constitutional Law, and popular culture. He also has written for The Atlantic and has provided on-air commentary to ABC News and MSNBC. He is the co-editor of Loving v. Virginia in a Post-Racial World (with Rose Villazor, Cambridge 2012).  An enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, he is the author of the forthcoming 2019 children's book, FRY BREAD.  

Neill W. Clark, father of four, adds commentary to this conversation.

Enjoy!  

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