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In 1992, Robert Cooley creates a minor but symbolic stir by standing up at a scholarly conference marking the 250th anniversary of Jefferson's birth and identifying himself as a Jefferson-Hemings descendant. We'll use that cultural moment when the counter-narrative physically clashes with the official narrative to signal what we might call the mixed-race family's pressure on the official narrative. But the pressure of the increased visibility of the Jefferson-Hemings family goes back at least as far as the Ebony article on "Jefferson's Negro Grandchildren" (1954) and Pearl Graham tracking down descendants of Harriet Hemings (1960), both of which we have seen already, and extends forward through the DNA results (1998), an appearance of the family on the Oprah show (1999), a tribute by President Bush at the White House (2000), and lives on in the Getting Word oral history project at Monticello.
The pressure brought by the Jefferson-Hemings family was not inconsiderable. Articles on their clamor for recognition appeared regularly in major media such as the New York Times, and, post-DNA, PBS's Frontline did a provocative documentary titled Jefferson's Blood (1999) on the contemporary state of the not-so-blended family.
Of interest might be the web site of The Monticello Association. Membership with right of burial in the graveyard has been a literal battleground. The black family was not allowed in. The DNA made this issue explosive, but the Association stood firm in denial. Also, there's the Thomas Woodson Family Association. Thomas Woodson was long thought to be the child conceived in Paris and born in Virginia -- the first child. But DNA showed no connection. The family has not given up claiming a connection with Jefferson.
The PBS Frontline documentary Jefferson's Blood is the central source in this episode.
