| Children's Features | ||||||
Recalling the Past Sally Lodge -- 9/25/00 A new book tells the story of an extraordinary extended family
Another invitation then followed: during that broadcast, Truscott (a fifth great-grandson of Jefferson through his and Martha's daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph) made the bold move of inviting his Hemings cousins, those on the show as well as all others not present, to the annual Jefferson family reunion at Monticello the following May. "I had grown up knowing that I was a direct descendent of Madison Hemings, one of Thomas's and Sally's children, but had encountered so many people who just didn't believe me," said Lanier. "So when Lucian told my cousins on national TV, 'You are our family, too,' I knew right then that I had to go to that reunion."
Among the hundreds of relatives and members of the press gathered on the hillside at Monticello on that May day was photographer Jane Feldman, who had also been watching Oprah that day. "I had been intrigued by the Jefferson-Hemings story since reading Fawn Brodie's Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History in the 1970s," she explained, "and I'd also been working on a book project about the American family. Kate Klimo [v-p and publisher of Random House Books for Young Readers], whom I'd known for 10 years, had suggested that I find a famous family to focus on, but the thought of going to Hollywood and shooting a celebrity family seemed like a cheap shot. Watching Oprah, it suddenly struck me: if I wanted an extraordinary American family, here it was! I contacted Lucian Truscott, who invited me to the reunion as well." Camera in hand, Feldman arrived at Monticello hoping to get a group photograph of the Jefferson-Hemings clan, a mission that turned out to be, in her words, "a logistical nightmare, since there were people dispersed over an area that covered half a mountainside." But then she met Shannon, who offered to help her organize a picture and introduced her to family members. Though Feldman had been told ("by a source I won't mention," she remarked) that it would be "inappropriate" for her to take a group shot, Shannon came to her rescue. In her words, "Though I and the rest of the press had been instructed to leave the grounds immediately after three keynote speakers addressed the group, as soon as the last one finished, Shannon, being a righteous 19-year-old at the time, ran up the steps and grabbed the mike and called forward his family for a photo. I was amazed when more than 80 people jumped onto the steps--and I got my shot. Of course not everyone was in it; there were Jefferson relatives looking on who were horrified and who would never appear in such a symbolic picture. But I had a very emotional reaction after taking the shot. In tears, I gave Shannon a big hug and said, 'I have a strange feeling we're always going to know each other.'" A Long Journey Begins
Lanier and Feldman began their journey in Chillicothe, Ohio, where they met with Beverly Gray, an oral historian who has spent 30 years researching and preserving the history of all the Monticello slave families, including the Hemingses. She accompanied Feldman, Lanier, his mother and grandmother to the graveyard where Madison Hemings--a fourth-generation slave--was buried and to Lanier's great-great-grandmother's house, which had once been a stop on the Underground Railroad. "Beverly laid a huge foundation for us," noted Lanier, who was grateful for her guidance as he and Feldman "traced my ancestors' steps." Though the prospect of locating family members and deciding which of them to interview was initially overwhelming, the collaborators found help along the way. "I had exchanged phone numbers at Monticello with some family members I hadn't met before," Lanier explained, "and as we visited people, they made new connections for us, suggesting other relatives we should talk to. It became a process of the whole family working together, and the support was overwhelming--just about everywhere we went, we were offered a place to sleep or a meal." "We were quite an interesting team, with one of us being black, the other white, and a 20-year age difference," Feldman added. "But it seemed to work to our advantage--between the two of us, they couldn't refuse us. But there were some very painful interviews along the way, since we wanted to include the voices of the nay-sayers [Jefferson's descendants who dispute the fact that he had children with Hemings] as well. Some people were also very protective of the family, and I felt as though my intentions were very much scrutinized at first. But now many consider me an honorary Hemings, which is a great honor. This is truly an accomplished and remarkable family, who has for generations reached out and helped others in many ways." More grueling than their traveling and interviewing schedule, the duo reported, was the follow-up work. Some of the transcriptions of taped conversations were very lengthy--up to 90 pages--and had to be edited down to just a few pages. Feldman described this as "perhaps the hardest part of this entire project. We had to boil down these interviews so as to be true to people's voices and also be historically correct. We had people we interviewed sign releases on the spot and then we sent them the edited versions to make sure we hadn't taken anything out of context. We put in many eight- to-12-hour days to keep the book on track, given our incredibly fast turnaround time." At Random House, Klimo noted that "the urgency to this project came from within from the very beginning. Shannon, Jane and I all felt that we did not want to delay this book, that this was a compelling story that needed to be brought to light as soon as possible. This was an ambitious and sophisticated project, and Shannon did a remarkable amount of the work. Ironically, I know Jane through our mutual work for CityKids, a wonderful group that promotes diversity and peer counseling among city youth. And her collaboration with Shannon amounts to one of the most masterful instances of youth mentoring I've ever seen. Shannon seemed to grow by the day." Lanier and Feldman, whom the publisher reports will visit six to eight cities to promote Jefferson's Children, hope the bookwill spark dialogue among children about their own genealogy, the meaning of family and race issues, including the prejudice that has led numerous African Americans (some of Lanier's ancestors among them) to "pass" into white society. This young author hopes that the book, in his words, "will educate readers about the concept of family as the unification of people by soul, rather than by blood or the color of skin. We have to build each other up, rather than tear each other apart." Though neither collaborator dismisses the possibility of doing a second book, they have no set plans. "There are still stories to be told and more people to meet," Feldman reflected. "But after working so hard on this book for more than a year, right now we just want to concentrate on getting its message out there." | ||||||
Recalling the Past
Sep 25, 2000
A version of this article appeared in the 09/25/2000 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline:
