The Jefferson - Hemings Controversy

Here is a collection of other depictions of or references to the Jefferson-Hemings relationship in prose, poetry, art, sculpture, music, drama, television, documentary film, photography.

Akins, James. "A Philosophic Cock" (c.1804): http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/images/vc140.jpg; Associated with James Thomson Callender's "outing" of Jefferson.
Bolcolm, William, composer. From the Diary of Sally Hemings. Perf: Alyson Cambridge, Lydia Brown. Audio CD. White Pine Music, 2010.: Musical rendition of text by Sandra Seaton (18 pieces): from "They say I was born old" to "Night watch till early morn." A song cycle that recreates the thoughts and feelings of Sally Hemings throughout her long relationship with Thomas Jefferson by means of fictional diary entries. A complex, vital Sally Hemings who refuses to be identified merely as Jefferson's mistress. See Seaton entry.
Burgess, Granville. Dusky Sally [1982] New York: Broadway Play Pub., 1987.: Play version of the Sally story about which Barbara Chase-Riboud brought a successful plagiarism suit.
Burgraff, Ben. Caricature: Jefferson and Hemings in bed.: http://web.archive.org/web/20120829131120/http://cariart.tripod.com/JEFFERSON.jpg; "This wasn't what I had in mind when I asked your position on slaves, Mr. President."
The Education of Max Bickford. CBS Televison. (1990s): Contains, according to Monteith, an episode in which a 5th grade teacher asks her class if they knew Jefferson had children with a slave.
"Fireworks." Episode 18, year one of television series 30 Rock.: DNA tests as part of a paternity suit show that the character played by African American Tracy Morgan is a descendant of Jefferson and Hemings. Morgan appears on the "Maury" show, where Alec Baldwin appears as Jefferson, who "rode on a horse from Heaven" to tell him to be proud of who he is.
Hartz, Jill. Siting Jefferson: Contemporary Artists Interpret Thomas Jefferson's Legacy. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2003.: The record of a University of Virginia Art Museum exhibit in which performance works such as Todd Murphy's "Monument to Sally Hemings (on the cover) were site-specific and thus only exist now in this book. Of especial interest is the chapter "Thomas Jefferson: Race and National Identity."
Joe, T. Y. Jefferson's Sally.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gah7LBoKcrM; A Noh theater style play.
Martinez, Pablo Miguel. "Yours, Sally Hemings." North American Review January-February 2009: 30.: Poem: "Tonight your weight, insistent, / bears down on me. Your breath / stale. I stare at the moon, / our commonwealth, a sharp / talon ripping the dark velvet / of this difficult night."
McCallum, Bradley, and Jacqueline Tarry. "Topsy Turvy." (2006): http://www.mccallumtarry.com/index.php?article_id=59; Performance art: Jefferson and Hemings joined on a turning device, thus mimicking the structure of a "twinning doll," a Victorian-era toy for children.
McCauley, Robbie. Sally's Rape. (1992): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQf9BB8Mfuk; Sally Hemings is not "the" Sally of McCauley's play -- which is based on the sale and repeated sexual abuse of McCauley's slave great-great-grandmother -- but is referenced.
Mion, Tina. "Half Sisters." (2002): http://www.tinamion.com/ladies_first/jefferson.html; Martha Jefferson & Sally Hemings: "I feel that the real story is being overlooked. Most people don't know that Sally was Martha's half-sister and that, by written accounts, she looked like Martha. Sally moved into the White House after Martha's death. How strange it must have been for Jefferson to be constantly reminded of his dead wife."
Monteith, Sharon. "Sally Hemings in Visual Culture: A Radical Act of the Imagination?" Slavery and Abolition 29.2 (2008): 233-46.: "This article examines the ways in which their [Jefferson and Hemings] relationship, most particularly the image of Sally Hemings, has been represented in visual culture. It explores Hemings as dramatized in cinematic and television productions, but particularly pays attention to her representation in art and sculpture."
Murphy, Todd. "Monument to Sally Hemings." (2000): Public art: white dress on top of a building, highly visible in Charlottesville, and vandalized several times while exhibited. Can be seen on the cover of Jill Hartz's Siting Jefferson (see above).
Newman, Fred, and Annie Roboff. Sally and Tom (The American Way). (2005) (2012): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkWW1sOMqKs; Newman: "a play about love; not merely a story of two people . . . in love, but a play about what love is. It reminds us, hopefully, of the rather startling fact that we humans can, apparently, love under almost any circumstance."
Obadike, Mendi and Keith. "American Cypher: Stereo Helix for Sally Hemings.": http://galleries.blogs.bucknell.edu/2012/01/26/american-cypher-stereo-helix-for-sally-hemings-by-mendi-and-keith-obadike/; "With this inaugural exhibition, the stairwell of the Elaine Langone Center at Bucknell University is transformed into a sound art chamber. Artists Mendi and Keith Obadike describe the Stereo Helix for Sally Hemings, part of their American Cypher project, as a sonic drawing created for the lobby of the ELC. The primary sound source for this work is a small antique bell that belonged to Sally Hemings, given to her by Martha Jefferson (her half-sister and Thomas Jeffersonâ€™s wife)." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTfT7tY__5g
Park, Gloria Toyun. "Thomas Jefferson." (1998): http://www.fiberscene.com/galleries/gallery13.html; Public art: Park placed handmade wigs on historical public statues on the campus of Columbia University. The wigs encouraged discourse of rarely publicized aspects of the lives of these male figures: "I created a cornrow wig, a traditional African hairstyle for Alexander Hamilton, since some historians have speculated his racial heritage to be of mixed blood. Thomas Jefferson wore a slave bonnet and a wig, alluding to his alleged relationship with his slave mistress of forty years, Sally Hemings. With the medium of hair, I interweaved race, gender and history with humor, wit and wigs to create provocative augmentations to the Founding Fathers." Every Monument needs a wig. (See Monteith)
Ruffin, Frances E. Sally Hemings (American Legends). New York: Powerkids Press, 2002.: Grades 2-5: the association between President Jefferson and Sally is called a "special relationship."
Saar, Lezley. "Harriet Hemings: Slave Daughter of Thomas Jefferson." (1999): http://www.all-art.org/art_20th_century/saar1.html; Mixed media: in the lower right-hand corner of the painting is a portrait of Jefferson; at the lower left is Sally Hemings; and linked to and rising above them is a larger portrait of their child Harriet Hemings. In case anyone missed the TV series and films and books devoted to this scandal, Saar explains the circumstances of the story in large handwriting around the images. (See Monteith)
Sally Hemings. A&E. (2001): Part of the award-winning Biography series.
Salter, Mary Jo. "The Hand of Jefferson." A Phone Call to the Future: New and Selected Poems. New York: Knopf, 2008. 124-38.: "His time is over. / He'll take the answer to his grave / whether he fathered children with his slave, / Sally Hemings; what worlds he'll offer / to cover himself are buried in a drawer, / meant for his tombstone."
"Search for Adam." National Geographic Television Show, June 26, 2005.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rL1mzJ69DU; Jefferson's Y chromosome shows his earliest ancestor is not European but Phoenician (Canaan).
Seaton, Sandra. "From the Diary of Sally Hemings." Michigan Quarterly Review 40.4 (2001).: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?cc=mqr;c=mqr;c=mqrarchive;idno=act2080.0040.402;rgn=main;view=text;xc=1;g=mqrg; 15 poems: a complex, vital Sally Hemings who refuses to be identified merely as Jefferson's mistress. See Bolcolm entry.
Seaton, Sandra. "Sally." 2003.: http://141.209.19.130/seaton/plays.htm; "Sally is a one-woman drama set at Monticello in the days before Thomas Jefferson's death on July 4, 1826. The play explores the thoughts and feelings of a mature Sally Hemings as she reflects on her life with Thomas Jefferson. In Jefferson's final days, Sally Hemings is determined to insure that his long-ago promise to free all their children at the age of 21 will be kept after his death."
"The Story on Page One." Episode 219 of Family Guy.: Quick comic image of Jefferson's large black family gathering for a family picture.
Taylor, Tess. "A Letter to Jefferson from Monticello." www.common-place.org 13. 4 (Summer 2013).: http://www.common-place.org/vol-13/no-04/poetry/; Poem: see stanza IV.
"Tom and Sally." Garrison Keillor. April 2, 2011.: http://www.publicradio.org/columns/prairiehome/posthost/2011/04/06/jefferson_song.php; Song sung on his radio show by Keillor on Jefferson's birthday. Includes audio, lyrics, and fifty (sometimes negative) comments by listeners.
Traut, Karyn. Saturday's Children. (1988): A play by, ironically, wife of future Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society Scholars Commission (2001) member Thomas Traut, points to Jefferson's brother Randolph as Sally's partner.
Virginia is for Lovers: http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2007/04/19/NEWS-tommyheartsally-F.rtf.aspx; April 19, 2007, news story in The Hook.com tells of the Committee for Jeffersonian Traditions, a "new secret society" at the University of Virginia, running a "Tommy Heart Sally" campaign "to knock school founder Thomas Jefferson off his pedestal and bolster the recognition of his African-American slave and mistress, Sally Hemings." The campaign features images of Jefferson and Hemings, including a play on the Virginia state slogan, which is included in the article.
Weems, Carrie Mae. The Jefferson Suite. (1999): "A photographic reconstruction of Jefferson and Hemings shot from behind" (Monteith).