On an early autumn day, approximately 1,600 people ascended to the heights of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello for a summit on race, memory and slavery.
In a tent on the West Lawn, where Jefferson planted his formal gardens and kept a fishpond, they assembled to hear a gospel choir kick off the proceedings of “Memory, Mourning, Mobilization: Legacies of Slavery and Freedom in America,” a public event hosted by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.
Gospel music and the scenic views from the lofty heights above Charlottesville, Virginia, were not the only draws. Attendees were also there to hear some of the nation’s foremost thinkers, activists, artists and historians discuss the continued struggle for civil equality, the aftershocks of slavery and Jefferson’s legacy.
The summit was the capstone of Human/Ties, a four-day event marking the 50th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The organizers of Human/Ties, sponsored by the NEH, the University of Virginia (UVA), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello, structured the event around an examination of five general themes — race, war, the environment, globalization and democratic citizenship, through the lens of the humanities.
Among those also in attendance at the Monticello summit were descendants of the enslaved people who once lived and worked at Monticello. At the start of the event, Gayle Jessup White, a descendant of the Jefferson and Hemings families and a community engagement officer at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, offered her thoughts on the importance of coming to terms with the past.
“What do the story of the slaves and their descendants have to do with race relations today? Everything,” she said. “People who don’t know their history and culture are like a tree without roots. … Slavery and its consequences, including Jim Crow, segregation and disenfranchisement, continue to cast a shadow over every American. It impacts how we live and too often, how we die.”
A troubled past
