Jefferson-Hemings is a love story

Sunday, February 13, 2000

Jefferson-Hemings is a love story

CBS miniseries should provoke controversy, and that's fine with two family descendants

Some people might be offended at CBS' depiction of Thomas Jefferson's romance with a slave in Sally Hemings: An American Scandal, the four-hour miniseries airing today and Wednesday. That doesn't worry descendants Julia Jefferson Westerinen or Priscilla Lanier.

“I hope it's controversial, and that people will talk about it,” says Ms. Westerinen, 65, whose family tradition traces back to Eston Hemings, youngest son of Sally and Thomas Jefferson.

IF YOU GO

What: Sally Hemings: An American Scandal.
When: 9-11 p.m. today and Wednesday.
Where: Channels 12, 7.

“You can't solve the problem of American racism unless it's acknowledged and discussed,” says the Staten Island grandmother who previewed Sally Hemings with about 800 Hemings' descendants, mostly from Ohio, at Ohio State University on Feb. 4.

CBS' miniseries, a blend of fact and fantasy, is based on recent DNA tests revealing that the third U.S. president (1801-09) probably was the father of one, if not all six, of Ms. Hemings' children, according to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, which owns Monticello.

Script writer Tina Andrews (Why Do Fools Fall In Love) portrays the 39-year relationship between Jefferson (Sam Neill from Merlin) and Hemings (unknown English actress Carmen Ejogo) not as one of master and slave, but as a passionate love story.

Sally Hemings, a beautiful fair-skinned black woman, was Jefferson's chamber maid who slept in a room adjacent to his Monticello bedroom. She was a half-sister to his late wife, the daughter of slave Betty Hemings and John Wayles, Jefferson's father-in-law. Jefferson's wife, Martha, died in 1782, when Sally was 9.

“I was not out to sully the image of any great American icon. Because, to me, I don't think you can help who you fall in love with,” says Ms. Andrews, an African-American who spent 15 years researching the story.

“I just thought it was a beautiful love story that needed to be told and to be told as that — and not the rape of Mother Africa, because I never saw it that way,” she says.

Ms. Andrews says her script is 80 percent history and 20 percent dramatic license, though historians likely will disagree. This is a great soap opera, not a Ken Burns documentary.

Sally Hemings is based on Fawn Brodie's book, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, and the oral traditions of Sally's sons' families — Madison Hemings, Eston Hemings Jefferson and Thomas Jefferson Hemings Woodson — all of whom lived near Chillicothe, Ohio, in the 1800s.

Those stories are the same — that Thomas Jefferson was their father — even though many descendants of Madison, Eston and Thomas never met until the first DNA tests were announced in 1998. They are the same, even though most descendants of Eston, like Ms. Westerinen, are “white,” and descendants of Madison, like Mrs. Lanier, are “black.”

“I really and truly do believe the oral traditions in the African-American community,” says Ms. Andrews, who did rewrites on Sister Act II and Soul Food. “It's a powerful story and they have a wonderful legacy, and a rich oral tradition, which you can't discount, if you're a dramatist. You just can't.”

Begins in Paris
Sally Hemings opens in 1787 with Sally's mother (Diahann Carroll) sending her 14-year-old daughter to escort Mr. Jefferson's daughter, Polly (Jessica Townsend) to Paris, when Jefferson was serving as ambassador to France.

In Paris, the future president provides an education and fine clothes to Sally, who bears a resemblance to his late wife. Within the first half-hour of the show, they sleep together.

When the French Revolution heats up, the Jefferson entourage returns home to Virginia, with Sally pregnant with Jefferson's child.

Thomas Jefferson Hemings is born in 1790 at Monticello — a full-scale TV replica built in a Virginia tobacco field — while Mr. Jefferson is secretary of state under President George Washington.

Tonight's two-hour film ends with Jefferson completing his first year in the White House in 1802, and being embarrassed by a newspaper story revealing that the president had a 12-year-old son with a slave, “his mahogany coloured charmer.”

Wednesday's conclusion begins with Jefferson stonewalling the report. The finale covers the Louisiana Purchase; his second White House term; the birth of more children; the bankruptcy of Monticello; and his death on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Sally was at his side.

The Jefferson-Hemings saga is “one of the greatest interracial relationships in American history,” Ms. Andrews says.

No other lovers
“At the point that Sally Hemings showed up in Paris, Thomas Jefferson, who had been dating other women, stopped dating anybody else. And he never, ever dated anyone else seriously, nor did he marry again,” she says.

“Sally Hemings also did not give birth whenever he was not at the plantation, which says to me that she was not involved with someone else,” she says. “The children were always born nine months after Jefferson was on the plantation.”

• A teen-age Sally voluntarily undressing when Jefferson enters her bedroom in Paris.

• Sally in Paris debating Thomas Paine's Common Sense booklet with Mr. Paine, and arguing with Mr. Jefferson about whether “all men are created equal” when the scandal breaks in 1802.

• Sally's liaison with Jefferson in the White House at the height of the scandal.

• Sally having a letter from Jefferson, written in Paris, granting her freedom, which is not supported by history.

“There's a lot in the movie that we really don't know that happened or not,” Ms. Andrews admits. “We don't know for sure if that paper exists.”

Ms. Lanier, a teacher from Golf Manor who grew up in Chillicothe, praises Ms. Andrews for her compassionate script.

“Tina did a wonderful job of showing what a person like Sally would have been like,” says Ms. Lanier, 47, great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of Ms. Hemings.

Her grandmother's aunts “talked about (Madison Hemings) being a descendant of Thomas Jefferson,” says Ms. Lanier, who attended the Columbus preview with sons, Shawn, 24, and Shannon, 20. Her youngest son is is writing a Hemings family history book.

“This is the history that some historians say isn't real, because it isn't in print. Of course, they (slaves) were forbidden from being able to read or write,” notes Ms. Westerinen, whose ancestor, Eston Hemings, changed his name to Eston Hemings Jefferson when he moved from Chillicothe to Wisconsin in 1852 and passed there as white.

At the Ohio State screening, Ms. Westerinen says she was struck by how many people had a prominent “Jefferson nose,” freckles or red hair. Some African-Americans “were lighter than I am,” she says.

The real controversy y:
While in Ohio, Ms. Westerinen toured Hemings' landmarks in Chillicothe with Ross County historian Beverly Gray and dined at Waverly's Emmitt House, built by Madison Hemings.

“I think everything in it (the miniseries) is possible,” Ms. Westerinen says. “It's romanticized a bit, perhaps, but it's good entertainment. I loved it.”

The only thing that the screenwriter couldn't figure out is how the Declaration of Independence author could own slaves after writing that famous phrase, “all men are created equal.”

“I thought the controversy was that this man who had written that great document didn't at least free his own slaves,” Ms. Andrews says.

“To me, the controversy was not that he had the relationship with Sally,” she says. “She was described in history as being very beautiful, and she looked exactly like his wife. Any red-blooded American guy would be attracted to her.” John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV/radio critic. Write: 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; fax: 768-8330.



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