| Episodes |
- Achenbach, Joel. "Thomas Jefferson, Tarnished Icon?; Scholars Debate True Mettle Of the Founding Father." Washington Post 17 October 1992: D1.
- What sort of a legacy did Thomas Jefferson leave? Scholars at the University of Virginia conference "Jeffersonian Legacies" set out to discuss exactly this question. Though some believed Jefferson was a leader who was not tragically hypocritical like Christopher Columbus (to whom he is often compared), others cannot get past Jefferson's blatantly racist attitudes and slave-owning lifestyle. Though the conference did not come to any final answers, it provided a forum to discuss Jefferson's legacy and be critical of America's past leader. Especially noteworthy is that Robert Cooley creates a stir by identifying himself as a Hemings descendant.
- Aiken, Jonathan. "Proof of the American Pie as New Jeffersons Get Just Desserts." The Scotsman 20 May 1999.
- "Archaeologist: Jefferson Close to Slaves." Richmond Times-Dispatch 18 October 1992: A-10.
- Finds a strong connection between Jefferson and the Hemingses: the "slave quarters believed to have been inhabited by the Hemingses often were within feet of Jefferson's own lodgings." Artifacts found there were not the crude utensils ordinarily used by slaves.
- "At Reunion, Escorts for Slave’s Descendants." New York Times 5 May 2003.
- Bear, James A., Jr. "The Hemings Family of Monticello." Virginia Cavalcade 29.2 (1979): 78-87.
- Sally Hemings has become famous throughout history for her relationship with Jefferson. Unfortunately, the legacy of her siblings—also Hemingses who lived at Monticello—is often overlooked. Looking through Jefferson's Farm Book and historical record provides information on the lives of other important Hemingses whose stories have not often been told. Here there is a specific focus on Robert, James, Sally, and John Hemings.
- Boulton, Alexander O. "The Monticello Mystery-Case Continued." William and Mary Quarterly 58.4 (2001): 1039-46.
- Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (TJHS) and Byron and Minnie Woodson's works regarding the relationship both fail to prove their claims. The TJHS asserts that no final conclusions can be drawn about the paternity of descendants, and this doubt is what proves it isn't possible—a final conclusion drawn based on a lack of evidence. On the other hand, Byron and Minnie Woodson have made claims that Tom Woodson was the son of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings based on faulty analysis of historical documents, leaving many questions unanswered. The only things that can truly be agreed upon are the fact that some questions will always remain unanswered and these questions force conversation about race, sexuality, and American history and its retelling.
- Branigin, William. "Pruning Jefferson's Family Tree." Washington Post 13 April 2001: B3.
- Reports on the release of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society study coupled with and contrasted with a White House reception celebrating Jefferson's birthday with members of the Hemings family.
- Breaux, Kia Shant. "Letter from America: Slave Girl Descendants Battle to Join the Jeffersons." Birmingham Post 14 February 2000: 10.
- In conjunction with the showing of the film Sally Hemings: An American Scandal, Breaux informs readers of the struggle by Hemings' descendants to join the Monticello Association, a 700-member group of Jefferson descendants. Breaux is critical of the organization's resistance to admitting Hemings' descendants after DNA evidence nearly guarantees that they are offspring of Jefferson, and she even considers the possibility that this resistance is just a form of racism. Breaux relates the opinion of Association member Lucian Truscott, who believes that admitting the Hemings is the "beginning of racial healing, not just for [the Jefferson] family, but for the rest of the nation."
- Breed, Allen G. "Jefferson Family Proposes Separate Cemetery for Slave’s Descendants." Associated Press 19 April 2002.
- Brown, Mavis. "Race-Mixing: 'As American as Apple Pie'." Sankofa 3 (2004): 68-73.
- This review of Jefferson's Children that details Shannon Lanier's mission to find and interview Jefferson and Hemings descendants depicts many family members trying to see a common ground in their heritage. One very important part of the book is the introduction by Lucian Truscott IV. Lanier does a good job of showing that the values these family members share, as well as their strong relationships with one another, is what makes the group so special. The beautiful photos contained within the pages of the book provide a glimpse into the many faces that make up Jefferson's family, and accepting this is one step in the direction of demystifying race.
- Cauchon, Dennis. "Family Ties Become Frayed at Historic Jefferson Reunion." USA Today 17 May 1999.
- Cauchon, Dennis. "Jefferson Family Still Examining Ties to Hemings." USA Today 4 May 2000.
- Cauchon, Dennis. "Limited Invitation to Join Jeffersons." USA Today 28 April 1999.
- Cauchon, Dennis. "Rift Runs Through Jefferson Family Reunion." USA Today 14 May 1999.
- "Charlottesville Asked to Name Street After Jefferson’s Slave." Associated Press State & Local Wire 9 September 1999.
- Clines, Francis X. "Street-Name Plan Sparks a Jeffersonian Debate." New York Times 14 May 2000.
- Cogliano, Francis D. "Preservation and Education: Monticello and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation." A Companion to Thomas Jefferson. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 510-25.
- "Commemorative "Jeffersonian Legacies' Conference Set for October."
- http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/textonlyarchive/92-09-11/4.txt
- Looks like a press release for the conference at the University of Virginia marking the 250th anniversary of Jefferson's birth, the conference at which Robert Cooley identified himself as a Hemings descendant.
- Couric, Katie. "Lucian Truscott and Michelle Cooley-Quille, Descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Discuss Taking Part in the Annual Family Reunion at Monticello." NBC News Transcripts 14 May 1999.
- Cusick, Frederick. "Looking back on presidential roots." Philadelphia Inquirer 21 October 2001: B1.
- Review of Byron Woodson's A President in the Family: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and Thomas Woodson.
- Dejevsky, Mary. "Jefferson Descendants Reveal Tense State of US Race Relations." The Independent (London) 17 May 1999.
- Denery, Jim. "Jefferson Conference Will Destroy Myths." (Richmond) Daily Progress 4 October 1992: 1.
- Preview of the Jeffersonian Legacies conference at which Robert Cooley identified himself as a Hemings descendant. Interestingly, organizer Peter Onuf prophesies that the conference will "do a lot to destroy the myths surrounding Jefferson."
- "Descendants of Jefferson, Slave Hemings Hold Reunion in Ohio." Associated Press State & Local Wire 17 July 2005.
- Divito, Nick P. "Hemings Descendants Attend Jefferson Family Reunion." Associated Press State & Local Wire 6 May 2000.
- Duke, Lynne. "Jefferson & the Question of a Slave Son; Oral Tradition Recalls a Boy Named Tom, While Historians Are Unconvinced." Washington Post 13 April 1993.
- Egerton, Douglas. "Thomas Jefferson and the Hemings Family: A Matter of Blood." Historian 59.2 (1997): 327-45.
- Much of the evidence either proving or refuting the Jefferson-Hemings relationship is complicated by counter-evidence which disproves these same claims. Various scholars can focus on certain pieces of evidence that seem to bolster their views, whatever these views may be. The most challenging piece of this controversy is that much contradictory evidence does exist—even in Jefferson's views toward African Americans. Did Jefferson, a racist, really have a relationship with a black woman? Egerton considers this controversial question, among others while arguing that Jefferson's relationship with Sally and her children provide insight into Jefferson's true views on race.
- Ellis, Joseph J. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
- Contains an account of Cooley's intervention: "When he sat down, the applause from the audience rang throughout the auditorium."
- Foster, Eugene, et. al. "Jefferson Fathered Slave's Last Child." Nature 5 November 1998: 27-28.
- http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v396/n6706/full/396027a0.html
- This is the blockbuster article by the scientist who performed the test that claims that DNA findings do not support the idea that Thomas Jefferson fathered Sally's first son, Thomas Woodson, but do provide evidence that he was the father of Eston Hemings Jefferson. Foster clarifies that other explanations of the findings centered on illegitimacy in a variety of the lines of descent cannot be entirely ruled out. With the absence of historical evidence to support such possibilities, however, they are considered to be unlikely.
- French, Scot A., and Edward L. Ayers. "The Strange Career of Thomas Jefferson: Race and Slavery in American Memory, 1943-1993." Jeffersonian Legacies. Ed. Peter S. Onuf. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1993. 418-56.
- Excellent bibliographical essay that brings us right up to the moment in regard to Jefferson scholarship.
- Getting Word: African-American Family Histories. Monticello.org.
- http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/getting-word-african-american-family-histories
- A project to collect and record the oral histories of the descendants of Monticello slaves.
- Gray, Beverly. "Sally Hemings." Jefferson's Children: The Story of One American Family. Ed. Shannon Lanier and Jane Feldman. New York: Random House, 2000.
- Hamilton, Anita. "Thomas Jefferson: A Family Divided." Time 5 July 2004.
- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,994610,00.html
- 2004 marked the first annual family reunion following the DNA scandal in 1998 that was not publicized in the media. Not accepted by the Monticello Association that hosts the "official" Jefferson family reunion, the Hemings descendants decided to have their own family reunion at Monticello in 2004. Despite the racial separation that seemed inevitable at this point, Hamilton takes care to note that "the divisive reunions of the association actually helped create new family bonds among the very people it excluded—and motivated a few Jeffersons to cross the racial divide and embrace their once distant cousins."
- Harris, Duchess, and Bruce Baum. "Jefferson's Legacies: Racial Intimacies and American Identity." Racially Writing the Republic: Racists, Race Rebels, and Transformations of American Identity. Ed. Bruce Baum and Duchess Harris. Durham: Duke UP, 2009.
- Moves beyond the descendants of Jefferson and Hemings to a discussion of Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the daughter of the segregationist senator Strom Thurmond and his family's black maid.
- Hemmer, Bill. "Descendants of Thomas Jefferson Gather at Monticello for Their 87th Reunion." CNN 16 May 1999.
- Horton, Lois E. "Review of Jefferson's Blood, by Thomas Lennon, Shelby Steele." Public Historian 23.2 (2001): 133-36.
- Horton highlights important issues that the film raises such as the social construction of race and the reliability of oral tradition and history. The review is complimentary of the film and notes some of its beautiful scenes of Monticello and shots of both the white and black descendants in the family. The film, taken in conjunction with the corresponding PBS website, provides an in-depth analysis of many controversial issues addressed throughout the film.
- Ishida, Yoriko. "Thomas (Hemings) Woodson in the Woodson Family Oral History: The Bonds, Pride, and Identity of the Woodson Family in Minnie Shumate Woodson's The Sable Curtain." Modern and Postmodern Narratives of Race, Gender, and Identity: The Descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. New York: Peter Lang, 2010.
- Scholars disagree on the existence of Thomas Woodson. Woodson is such an important figure because the legitimacy of other parts of the story rest on him. For historians who do not believe in the relationship "to deny the existence of Tom is an important trump card to frustrate the scandal itself" (155). However, despite the contrary DNA results in 1998, the Woodsons maintain their oral tradition and claims to be descendants of Jefferson. Minnie Woodson's novel places an overemphasis on the blood relation between Tom, Jefferson, and Sally, and not enough emphasis on the identities of the other Jefferson-Hemings children.
- "Jefferson Descendants Black and White Attend Tribute by Bush." Philadelphia Inquirer 13 April 2001.
- Group of the Jefferson and Jefferson-Hemings family are honored on Jefferson's birthday, a sign that the White House recognized the Hemingses as Jefferson's descendants.
- "Jefferson Group Bars Slave's Descendants." New York Times 6 May 2002: A19.
- "Jefferson Heirs Plan Cemetery for Slave’s Kin." New York Times 21 April 2002.
- "Jeffersons Vote As Feud Simmers." St. Petersburg Times (Florida) 6 May 2002.
- Kahn, Chris, "Jefferson Descendants Ponder Membership, Cemetery For Hemingses." Associated Press State & Local Wire 3 May 2002.
- "Keeping Up with the Jeffersons." Washington Times 9 May 2002.
- Editorial congratulates the Monticello Association for refusing to invite the Hemingses to the Jefferson Family reunion.
- Laris, Michael. "Hemings Descendants Decide On a Family Party of Their Own; Less Rancor Marks Meeting of Jefferson Heirs." Washington Post 5 May 2003.
- Lewis, Jan Ellen. “The White Jeffersons.†Sally Hemings & Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture. Ed. Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1999.
- Lewis, Jan. Review of A President in the Family: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and Thomas Woodson, by Byron W. Woodson. Journal of American History 89.1 (2002): 206-7.
- The fact that the DNA could not prove a link between Jefferson and the Woodson family is merely "one of life's ironies." The way Woodson writes his book makes it difficult for readers not to feel sympathetic towards his family history; he cleverly includes photographs and bits of oral tradition. However, Woodson's book lacks much scholarly merit.
- Macklin, William R., "At Meeting of Jefferson Kin, Fight Ends First-Ever Reunion." The Philadelphia Inquirer 17 May 1999.
- McMurry, Rebecca L., and James F. McMurry. "The 1998 DNA Study." Anatomy of a Scandal: Thomas Jefferson and the Sally Story. Shippensburg: White Mane Books, 2002. 1-10.
- Mikkelsen, Randall. "Jefferson Kin, Black and White, meet at White House." Boston Globe 13 April 2001: 7.
- Oliphant, Thomas. "Thomas Oliphant; Jefferson Group’s Genteel Bigotry." Boston Globe 7 May 2002.
- Onuf Peter S., ed. Jeffersonian Legacies. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1993.
- Anthology of articles based on papers delivered at the conference marking the 250th anniversary of Jefferson's birth, the one at which Robert Cooley identified himself as a Hemings descendant.
- Onuf, Peter S. "The Scholar's Jefferson." William and Mary Quarterly 50.4 (1993): 671-99.
- Patton, Janet. "Horse Owner Sues in Attempt to Name Filly Sally Hemings." Lexington Herald-Leader 2 June 2005.
- Pierpoint, James. "Monticello Dig Finds Slave Burial Ground." Philadelphia Inquirer 11 April 2001.
- Powell, Michael. "All Mr. Jefferson’s Children; The Descendants of the Founding Father Have Much to Say About Their Family, and Their Nation." Washington Post 11 May1999.
- Pruden, Wesley. "A Modest Proposal to, uh, Heal Us All." Washington Times 7 May 1999.
- Randolph, Laura B. "The Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemings Controversy: Did Jefferson Also Father Children by Sally Hemings' Sister?" Ebony February 1999: 189-92.
- Randolph, Laura B. "The Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemings Controversy: Woodson Family Pressed Case as New Question Emerges: Did Jefferson Also Father Children by Sally Hemings' Sister?" Ebony February 1999: 189-92.
- Randolph, Laura B. "Thomas Jefferson's Black and White Descendants Debate His Lineage and Legacy." Ebony July 1993: 25-29.
- Robert Cooley III's story that he is a descendant of Jefferson and Hemings is backed up by oral tradition passed down from generations of the family. When Cooley stood up to tell his side of the story at the University of Virginia conference, he remembers that "the whole place went silent" (28). Cooley and his family are still met with criticism as they try to make their side of the story heard—many do not want to hear the account they are telling. Many African Americans who claim to be Jefferson descendants, however, say that they have been told this family history since they time that they were young. The goals of Cooley and his family are to focus "on its own accomplishments and its future" (29).
- Reed, David. "Jefferson Relatives Reject Slave Family Inclusion for Now." Associated Press 16 May 1999.
- Reed, David. "Jefferson Reunion Adds Slave's Kin." USA Today 6 May 1999.
- Rogers, Patrick, Glenn Garelik, and Amanda Crawford. "Out of the Past: All Tom's Children -- A President's presumed affair with a slave gives new meaning to the term Jeffersonian." People 23 November 1998.
- Shulman, Robin. "At Monticello, an Uplifting Homecoming; Hemings Descendants Gather for Ceremonies at Jefferson’s Slave, Family Cemeteries." Washington Post 14 July 2003
- Sloan, Samuel H. The Slave Children of Thomas Jefferson. Lynchburg: Orsden Press, 1992.
- Smith, Leef. "Theories of Relativity; Jefferson Family Report Urges Against Including Hemings Descendants." Washington Post 4 May 2002.
- Stanton, Lucia C. "'Those Who Labor for My Happiness': Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves." Jeffersonian Legacies. Ed. Peter S. Onuf. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 1993. 147-80.
- Stanton, Lucia. "'The Other End of the Telescope': Jefferson through the Eyes of His Slaves." William and Mary Quarterly 57.1 (2000): 139-52.
- Jefferson could not have been great without his slaves. They did everything for him. A number of slave stories recount the way Jefferson was in their eyes, including his habits and routines, specific moments on Monticello, and how he treated his 200 slaves. Though none of the stories can be confirmed by another, there is no recollection of Jefferson being a mean slave owner. For the most part, his slaves loved and admired him, and they would do anything for such a great man. It is unfortunate that this same man records in his various journals how much of an increasing burden the slaves have become. At the end of the day, they are property, and he treats them as such.
- Staples, Brent. "Editorial Observer; A Hemings Family Turns From Black, To White, To Black." New York Times 17 December 2001.
- Staples, Brent. "Editorial Observer; Interracialism Among the Jeffersons Went Well Beyond the Bedroom." New York Times 16 July 2003.
- Staples, Brent. "Editorial Observer; Lust Across the Color Line and the Rise of the Black Elite." New York Times 10 April 2005.
- Staples, Brent. "Editorial Observer; Monticello as the All-American Melting Pot." New York Times 1 July 2002.
- "The Strom Thurmond Syndrome: The Past Is The Present." The Gleaner 11 January 2004.
- "Thomas Jefferson Descendants Work to Heal Family's Past." National Public Radio. November 11, 2010.
- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131243217
- NPR host Michel Martin leads a discussion with three descendants of Jefferson and his wife Martha and Jefferson and Sally Hemings: David Works, Julie Jefferson Westerinen, and Shay Banks-Young. These descendants have won an award for searching for a common ground among descendants and for "their work to bridge the divide within their family and heal the legacy of slavery." The descendants discuss conceptions of ethnicity, the controversy over the right of Hemings descendants to be buried at Monticello, and the motivations of the Hemings side of the family behind establishing the legitimacy of the relationship.
- "Thomas Jefferson's Black and White Relatives Meet Each Other." Oprah Winfrey Show, January 18, 1999. Season 13, episode 12.
- Descendants appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1999, after the DNA results. Following the show, many Hemings descendants went to the annual family reunion at Monticello; however, they had to attend as guests, not as family members. Our class has not been able to locate a copy of the Oprah Winfrey episode in which the family members were featured as of the time of publication of this site.
- Thomas, Robert McG, Jr. "Robert Cooley 3d, 58, Lawyer Who Sought Link to Jefferson." New York Times 3 August 1998.
- Obituary for the man who caused the stir at the 1993 Jeffersonian Legacies conference by declaring he was a Hemings descendant, and who remained an activist in that regard.
- "Two Local Descendants of Thomas Jefferson." 6ABC.com. WPVI Philadelphia. Lisa Thomas-Laury. 25 February 2011.
- http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/video?id=7981236&pid=7980914
- News segment on two Philadelphia-area men who learned they are descendants of Jefferson-Hemings. The white man is positive, the black ambivalent about the knowledge.
- Washington-Williams, Essie Mae. Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond. New York: Regan Books, 2005.
- Thurmond was a segregationist senator who had this child by his family's black maid.
- Wiencek, Henry. Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012.
- Wilkerson, Elizabeth. "Historians Debate Jefferson-Slave Union." Richmond Times-Dispatch. 18 October 1992: A1.
- Robert Cooley III stood up during a question and answer period at the University of Virginia's seminar on "Jefferson, Race and Slavery" during the Jefferson's Legacies conference proclaiming that he was one of hundreds of living Jefferson descendants. Cooley is a descendant of Thomas Woodson, and the Woodson family has surviving oral tradition that traces their lineage back to Jefferson. Cooley notes that "It doesn't mean anything to be a Jefferson kid. He was a slaveholder. He kept us in slavery and really didn't do anything for us from a personal standpoint. But we certainly appreciate his words in the Declaration of Independence." Cooley's outspoken response illustrates the way that this controversy is being reborn in America as historians, citizens, and family members consider what it means for Jefferson's history and legacy.
- Will, George. “Winner of Person of the Millenium Is . . .†Daily Progress (Richmond) 16 December 1990.
- Williams, Sloan. "A Case Study of Ethical Issues in Genetic Research: The Sally Hemings-Thomas Jefferson Story." Biological Anthropology and Ethics: From Repatriation to Genetic Identity. Ed. Trudy R. Turner. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. 185-208. 599.9 B6152
- Wilson, Douglas L. "Thomas Jefferson and the Character Issue." Atlantic Monthly November 1992: 57-74.
- Influential article on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Jefferson's birth warning of the dangers of "presentism" in assessing his character.
- "Woodson Family Declines Invitation to Monticello Association Meeting." Associated Press State & Local Wire 26 April 2000.
