Sixth-Great Grandson Of Thomas Jefferson And Sally Hemings Says Americans MUST Unite
Facebook Twitter Flipboard sixth-great grandson Jefferson The TV host dressed as his ancestor for a photo series that he says holds “a mirror to America.” Thomas Jefferson had several children with his slave Sally Hemings and one of their descendants has posed for a photo shoot dressed as his famous ancestor. Houston television host, Shannon LaNier, […]
sixth-great grandson Jefferson
The TV host dressed as his ancestor for a photo series that he says holds “a mirror to America.” Thomas Jefferson had several children with his slave Sally Hemings and one of their descendants has posed for a photo shoot dressed as his famous ancestor.
Houston television host, Shannon LaNier, shared photos by British photographer Drew Gardner for a Smithsonian Magazine article titled “American Descendants. (see above)," and shared an extremely important message.
Per the Daily Mail
LaNier, who is a TV host in Houston, shared the images of him dressed in similar attire as Jefferson on Instagram.
‘The @smithsonianmagazine is helping hold a mirror to #America & reflect how #President #ThomasJefferson not only took part in creating this country but also it’s people… black, white, brown, yellow & red!’ LaNier wrote.
‘My ancestor had his dreams—and now it’s up to all of us living in America today to make sure no one is excluded from the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’
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A post shared by Shannon LaNier (@mrshannonlanier) on Jul 2, 2020 at 9:22am PDT
Shannon LaNier and photojournalist Jane Feldman co-authored the book Jefferson’s Children: The Story of One American Family which includes descendants from both Martha Jefferson and Sally Hemings. It has united them as one family.
…Shannon LaNier chose not to wear a wig while posing as his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. “I didn’t want to become Jefferson,” says LaNier, who has gone to reunions at Monticello and co-authored the book Jefferson’s Children: The Story of One American Family. “My ancestor had his dreams—and now it’s up to all of us living in America today to make sure no one is excluded from the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
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A post shared by Shannon LaNier (@mrshannonlanier) on Jul 5, 2020 at 12:10pm PDT
LaNier has posted just a handful of related videos to Instagram, but each one has the same message–equality. This is the same message that the Founders believed in, even if they didn’t enact it themselves in their day.
Here is a video that he participated in for Ancestry.com in 2017 with the caption, “#July4th looks much different NOW than it did in 1776. It also didn’t include many of the people in the remake of this painting! About 41 of the 56 #DeclarationOfIndependence signers owned slaves, so now the descendants of the signers look like this…
Anyone know how?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Now let’s fight to make #ThomasJefferson‘s words a reality… #AllMenAreCreatedEqual
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A post shared by Shannon LaNier (@mrshannonlanier) on Jul 4, 2020 at 10:19am PDT
This is a hope-filled message that we’re all interconnected. We can’t always look backward, we have to look forward to creating the world that the Founders had only dreamed about where all men were treated as equal. Fighting racism with racism isn’t the answer. Coming together as Americans is the only thing that will end the interminable racial divisiveness.
Cross-Posted with Clash Daily
sixth-great grandson Jefferson
sixth-great grandson Jefferson