Monticello Assn. Closed to Black Descendants

Re “Vote Rejects Hemings Claim,” May 6: Once again racism rears its ugly head. I personally believe that the vote to reject the relatives of Sally Hemings, a slave of Thomas Jefferson’s, into the Monticello Assn. has absolutely nothing to do with insufficient evidence, DNA or historical facts and has everything to do with the white Jefferson descendants not wanting to acknowledge any nonwhite descendants of Thomas Jefferson.

John Works made the racism involved in the vote very clear by the e-mail he sent to Lucian Truscott IV: a face of a black man with a zipper in place of a mouth. God forbid if someone were to go down the list of ex-presidents who have owned slaves and start checking DNA. There would probably be a flood of black descendants of presidents all over these United States.

For that matter, let’s go down the list of all who have owned slaves and start checking some DNA. That would probably bring on a tsunami of black descendants of slave owners. Now, wouldn’t that be something to see?

Kenya Glover

Long Beach

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Given the stupidity of the Monticello Assn.’s decision to deny admission to the Hemings descendants to their esteemed organization--despite the DNA evidence linking Hemings’ relatives to Jefferson--these relatives of Sally Hemings can take heart, since they obviously got the better Jefferson genes.

Donald A. Bentley

La Puente

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Researchers have estimated that up to 10% of children born in wedlock are not the husband’s biological child. It has been several generations since Jefferson’s day. I wonder how many of the Monticello Assn.’s members have been DNA-tested, as the Hemings descendants have?

Laurie Galvan

Long Beach