{"id":5080,"date":"2003-07-17T22:54:00","date_gmt":"2003-07-17T22:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/multiracial.com\/?p=5080"},"modified":"2021-06-13T17:19:25","modified_gmt":"2021-06-13T17:19:25","slug":"white-hemings-descendants-embrace-one-drop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/2003\/07\/17\/white-hemings-descendants-embrace-one-drop\/","title":{"rendered":"White Hemings Descendants embrace &#8220;one drop&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2003\/07\/14\/national\/14HEMI.html\">A Family Get-Together of Historic Proportions<\/a><br \/>\nThe New York Times<br \/>\nJuly 14, 2003<br \/>\nBy JAMES DAO <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Madison Hemings and his siblings were so light-skinned that they were able to blend into white communities. Many of their descendants did the same, leaving their slave ancestry behind.<\/p>\n<p>Julia Westerinen of Staten Island, who organized the reunion, said she had thought for years that she was related to Jefferson&#8217;s white uncle \u2014 until scholars discovered that she was a descendant of Eston Hemings. She now identifies herself as black on census forms.<\/p>\n<p>Her cousin Mary Jefferson contends that her mother, a working-class Italian, would not have married her father, the scion of a prominent Chicago family, had she known he was descended from slaves. Ms. Jefferson said that if her father knew he was related to Eston Hemings, he kept it a secret.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When the DNA results came out, I was moved to tears,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not that I was now a Jefferson. It was that I knew who my family was.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Some reunion guests said they are still trying to uncover their heritage. Thomas D. Best, a retired college professor from California, said he was convinced he was descended from Sally Hemings&#8217;s daughter Harriet. He has been combing through genealogical records for years to find proof. &#8220;I don&#8217;t get a lot of support from my family,&#8221; he said. &#8220;My 95-year-old aunt told me, `You were born white, and you&#8217;re going to stay white.&#8217; &#8220;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Family Get-Together of Historic Proportions The New York Times July 14, 2003 By JAMES DAO Madison Hemings and his siblings were so light-skinned that they were able to blend into white communities. Many&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[63,141],"tags":[121,133],"class_list":["post-5080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-d-powells-view","category-news-clips","tag-biracial-and-multiracial","tag-miscegenation-and-the-founding-fathers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89tuq-1jW","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/AD-Powell.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7247,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5080\/revisions\/7247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}