Was Thomas Jefferson Was Black? (The 5 Black Presidents)

I’m a professor of Black Studies at the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819. Jefferson wrote the American Declaration of Independence and went on to become third president of the United States. He was also an enslaver and a rapist.

When I remind people of this they usually tell me not to call Jefferson a rapist or condemn him for enslaving Black people because he was just a “man of his time.”But what does that mean? Does it mean we ignore that Jefferson enslaved more than 600 Black people during his lifetime, including Sally Hemings, the teenage girl he forced into a sexual relationship with him and whose six children he fathered only to enslave them too?

Do we shrug off knowledge that enslaved children were whipped at Monticello—a brutal terror tactic used by enslavers to exert domination and control? And do we pretend that as head of state Jefferson was powerless to end slavery when other world leaders of the time managed to do so?In day-to-day life​, “man of his time” is a cliché often used to excuse past crimes, especially those of so-called great white men. For scholars it’s a meaningless phrase though. Every person is of their time. What we’re interested in is how people lived in their time. All of them. Not just a chosen few. (BY MARLENE L. DAUT, PH.D)