‘A mirror to America’
TV anchor Shannon LaNier is the descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
Astylist wrapped a strip of white linen around Shannon LaNier’s neck three times before tucking it into his shirt. The cravat is something of a historical fashion accessory — the style of neck cloth that the third president, Thomas Jefferson, wore for his official portrait, circa 1800, shortly before his White House term began.
It’s also uncomfortable. Under the hot glare of modern studio lights, LaNier compares it to a medical brace.
When photographer Drew Gardner approached him to re-create Jefferson’s famous portrait for “The Descendants,” a project commissioned by Smithsonian magazine, it took some persuading. LaNier, the sixth-generation great-grandson of Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemings, had never seen the family resemblance. Even when he is dressed the part in replica tailcoat, trousers and vest authentic to the 19th century, he still has his doubts. “Cousins in our family look more like him than I do.”
He worried the photo might come across as comical. Or worse, degrading.
Gardner explained the intent behind his idea: to illustrate the power of genes through generations. LaNier agreed — on one condition.
“I said, ‘I’m not going to put on a Jefferson wig,’ ” he says. “I didn’t want to become Jefferson. I wanted to be Shannon and hold a mirror to America and his relationship with Sally Hemings. I’m here because of it.”
Gardner did his best to match the lighting in Rembrandt Peale’s original oil on canvas in a studio at CW39, where LaNier works as a morning news anchor. Once the backdrop was set and his subject was in place, Gardner picked up his camera and hoped for the best.
“It doesn’t always happen,” he says, “but there comes a moment when you look through the viewfinder and think you see something from the past that gives you goosebumps.”
The gravitas of that what they’d re-created didn’t click for LaNier until later. Gardner’s pairing of the two portraits side by side revealed a ghost from centuries past.
“The face structure, the cheekbones. One face takes over the other,” LaNier says. “I never imagined the results could be that powerful.”
He hesitates to describe the experience as emotional. Shocking, he suggests, is more accurate.
His bloodline tells the story of two threads of American history. He’s the descendant of the Founding Father who authored the Declaration of Independence and organized the Louisiana Purchase — and Hemings, the enslaved, mixed-race woman who bore six of Jefferson’s children during their 38-year relationship.
Despite signing the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, his and Hemings’ offspring are the only adult slaves Jefferson ever freed.
“I’m proud of what he did to create America’s foundation, but most of the time I’m angry that he didn’t do more,” LaNier says. “My feelings for Jefferson are just about as complicated as the history of this country.”
LaNier, 41, has always known about his family lineage. He’s related to Hemings on his mother’s side, and she regaled her children with stories of their heritage when they were young. Still, he learned the hard way that not everyone would be receptive to a small Black boy claiming to be a blood relation of Jefferson’s.
“There was a time in second grade when I told my teacher,” he recalls. “She told me to sit down and stop telling lies. Everyone laughed. It got to the point when I was little that I didn’t tell anyone.”
In 1998, a team of geneticists led by Dr. Eugene Foster disclosed the results of DNA tests and asserted that “the Jefferson-Hemings relationship could be neither refuted nor substantiated.”
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation responded by forming a nine-member research committee to weigh the evidence. Two years later, in January 2000, the group reported that its findings indicated “a high probability that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Eston Hemings … and likely the father of all six of Sally Hemings’ children listed in Monticello records.”
Oprah Winfrey invited Hemings’ descendants to appear on her talk show. Watching that TV segment is when photographer Jane Feldman says she felt a voice beckoning her to attend what would become the first joint Jefferson-Hemings reunion at Monticello, the president’s plantation home in Charlottesville, Va.
“I read a book about Hemings by Fawn M. Brodie and freaked out,” said Feldman of the author’s fourth biography, “Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History.” “I went into high school asking everyone, ‘Did you know the president had two families?’ Because this white girl never heard of this.”
Hemings and Jefferson’s wife, Martha Jefferson, shared the same father.
“Martha’s father was a slave owner and Jefferson’s mentor,” LaNier said. “So I wonder if he thought, ‘If my mentor is sleeping with his slaves, why can’t I?’ ”
In May 1999, Feldman headed to Monticello, hoping to document the event with a group photo. The scene was a threering circus; both national and international press outlets had also made the trip.
Feldman began to doubt that a joint family photo of the historic reunion would be possible.
“Then this 19-year-old kid came bopping over from Cincinnati and said, ‘I see what you’re trying to do,’ ” she recalls. “Shannon winked at me and gave my hand a little squeeze. He invited people to the steps, and 80 people got onstage. I got the shot.”
How did her image turn out different from the rest? “I screamed out, ‘How does it feel to make history?’ Fists went up into the air,” she says.
And a friendship was born. En route back to New York, Feldman called an editor friend at Penguin Random House to pitch a book idea on what she had just witnessed. That was on a Friday. By Monday, she had made a proposal, and within 24 hours, Feldman and LaNier got the green-light to write “Jefferson’s Children: The Story of One American Family.”
The nonfiction collection of interviews, stories, historical accounts and research is regarded as the first published work on the topic to include oral history and personal anecdotes from family members.
“We conducted interviews all over the country and did it on the cheap,” Feldman says.
“Some of our best interviews were over breakfast and coffee.”
Their six months on the road together was the best kind of life experience he could have received, LaNier says. He spoke with relatives from Martha Jefferson’s side who grew up white and later found out they were mixed. He met relatives who had Confederate flags tattooed on their bodies.
“Of all the family, I wouldn’t say that Shannon looks the most like Thomas Jefferson. It was really clear with some of them,” Feldman notes. “But his look has changed over the years. The lines of his face are more chiseled. He has sort of morphed.”
Gardner, the London-based photographer behind “The Descendants,” had his eye on LaNier for five years before photographing him. He has re-created the portraits of 18 historic figures so far. It’s his personal rebellion against our culture’s current obsession with famous people who lack merit, he says.
“These are really interesting celebrities from the past,” he says of his 15-year-long passion project. “I choose subjects who are interesting, who are going to provoke conversations and prompt people to ask questions.”
Gardner tracked LaNier down on LinkedIn. Jefferson’s sixth great-grandson proved a tough sell. “We were on the phone for more than an hour. He was cautious to celebrate a man who violated Sally Hemings.”
The way LaNier sees it, history has romanticized the relationship between an American president and hero, who also repeatedly impregnated a woman he had enslaved.
“Even if there was an inkling of love, she was his property,” he asserts. “I wasn’t there, so I can’t say, but we can’t judge history with contemporary eyes. I’m not trying to attack Jefferson, but he was a flawed man.”
LaNier points out that his ancestor practiced one thing yet preached another. According to letters written by Jefferson to Thomas Cooper and William Short, respectively, the Founding Father called slavery a “moral depravity” and “hideous blot,” though he enslaved more than 600 people over the course of his lifetime.
“He clearly didn’t believe that deep down in his heart because he didn’t free those people,” LaNier says. “Jefferson was able to write the Declaration of Independence and become president because he didn’t have to pick cotton — he had free laborers to do it. So, I want to tell Sally’s stories and the voices of their children because they helped found this country.”
Which is how Gardner persuaded LaNier to sit for their portrait: by emphasizing the opportunity to raise awareness and correct history.
Smithonsian magazine’s behind-the-scenes video from their photo shoot has spread like wildfire since the July 4 weekend posting. “It has 50,000 views on my Instagram page. And I’ve never had 50,000 views on anything,” LaNier says.
Public response has been positive, albeit overwhelming. Sometimes he gets recognized by people who’ve seen him online or on CNN. “Friends say, ‘I’ve known you for this long and you never told me?’ But it’s not something I necessarily brag about.”
LaNier and his wife, Chandra LaNier, talk to their three children — ages 9, 7 and 4 — about their ancestors delicately. The college sweethearts who met at Kent State University say it’s tough to explain how people used to own other people.
Their hope is that if the Hemingses and Jeffersons can come together and see each other as family, perhaps the nation’s racial unrest can heal, too. LaNier doesn’t think the pain will fade until America acknowledges its dark past. So he’s happy to share his story if it helps start those conversations.
“As a descendant, I take it for granted,” he says of his ancestry and the reactions he has gotten. “People just want to touch me and shake my hand. I’m still not used to that.”