THE UNLIKELY AND THE LOVED (1 OF 8)
Scripture: Ruth 1:1-5
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The Unlikely and the Loved (1 of 8)
Series: Ruth: The Far Reach of the Love of God
Wyman Richardson
Ruth 1:1-5
Read Ruth 1:1-5
In a May 17, 1999, Washington Post article entitled ''Jeffersons Split Over Hemings Descendants,'' staff writer Leef Smith wrote of the tense moments when, the day before, the descendants of Sally Hemings, one of Thomas Jefferson's slaves, attended the 86th annual meeting of the Monticello Association, ''a group of 700 descendants of Thomas Jefferson and his wife, Martha.'' Here are a few insightful selections from the article.
They may not look alike or accept that they're related, but when the descendants of Thomas Jefferson and one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, sat down at a white-linen luncheon this afternoon, it was like an episode of ''Family Feud.''
Before people even tucked in their napkins, goodwill lost its footing and the bickering began. The occasion was the 86th annual meeting of the Monticello Association, a group of 700 descendants of Thomas Jefferson and his wife, Martha. This year, for the first time, about 35 descendants of Hemings, long thought by some to have been the mistress of the third president, were invited as guests.
Although the meeting was closed to the public and reporters, more than two dozen of whom milled outside the luncheon site at a hotel here, hints of what was going on among the 200-plus diners inside the Jefferson Ballroom were quick to leak.
First came a motion to evict the predominantly black Hemings faction and other nonvoting members from the room while the group mulled over scientific evidence made public last fall showing all but conclusively that Jefferson fathered Hemings's youngest son, Eston. If the group accepted the evidence, it also had to consider whether the Hemings family should be admitted to the exclusive and, for now at least, all-white Monticello Association. Among other things, membership carries the privilege of burial at Monticello, Jefferson's neoclassical ...
Series: Ruth: The Far Reach of the Love of God
Wyman Richardson
Ruth 1:1-5
Read Ruth 1:1-5
In a May 17, 1999, Washington Post article entitled ''Jeffersons Split Over Hemings Descendants,'' staff writer Leef Smith wrote of the tense moments when, the day before, the descendants of Sally Hemings, one of Thomas Jefferson's slaves, attended the 86th annual meeting of the Monticello Association, ''a group of 700 descendants of Thomas Jefferson and his wife, Martha.'' Here are a few insightful selections from the article.
They may not look alike or accept that they're related, but when the descendants of Thomas Jefferson and one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, sat down at a white-linen luncheon this afternoon, it was like an episode of ''Family Feud.''
Before people even tucked in their napkins, goodwill lost its footing and the bickering began. The occasion was the 86th annual meeting of the Monticello Association, a group of 700 descendants of Thomas Jefferson and his wife, Martha. This year, for the first time, about 35 descendants of Hemings, long thought by some to have been the mistress of the third president, were invited as guests.
Although the meeting was closed to the public and reporters, more than two dozen of whom milled outside the luncheon site at a hotel here, hints of what was going on among the 200-plus diners inside the Jefferson Ballroom were quick to leak.
First came a motion to evict the predominantly black Hemings faction and other nonvoting members from the room while the group mulled over scientific evidence made public last fall showing all but conclusively that Jefferson fathered Hemings's youngest son, Eston. If the group accepted the evidence, it also had to consider whether the Hemings family should be admitted to the exclusive and, for now at least, all-white Monticello Association. Among other things, membership carries the privilege of burial at Monticello, Jefferson's neoclassical ...
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