INSIDER
Unity has long been a theme, and anxiety, for new presidents
Read full article: Unity has long been a theme, and anxiety, for new presidents(AP Photo, File)NEW YORK – When Joe Biden addresses the country for the first time as president, his inaugural speech is likely to echo calls for unity that predecessors have invoked since the first time George Washington was sworn in. Unity has since been a theme, and an anxiety, for many incoming presidents, who have faced economic and social crises and moments when the very future of the U.S. was in doubt. “Unity has always been an aspiration," says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. But when we have domestic turmoil we use the word unity.”The United States was forged through compromise among factions that disagreed profoundly on slavery, regional influence and the relative powers of state and federal government. “A president often claims the country is ‘united’ behind a belief when it’s more wishful thinking than reality,” Widmer says.
Thomas Jefferson's enslaved grandson escaped
Read full article: Thomas Jefferson's enslaved grandson escapedAn Ebony Magazine article titled, "Thomas Jefferson's Negro Grandchildren" was published in either 1954 or 1958. She broke that silence for the magazine interview, appearing with a handful of other elderly black men and women beneath the bold, all-capital-letters headline: "THOMAS JEFFERSON'S NEGRO GRANDCHILDREN." Peter Fossett, who had actually been born into slavery at Jefferson's Virginia plantation, Monticello. The plantation's online Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia identifies Fossett as the grandson of slave Mary Hemings Bell (a relative of Sally Hemings) and an unknown white father possibly, it suggests, carpenter William Fosset. Bessie Curtis, when she spoke to Ebony Magazine, was listed as a caterer and an active member of First Baptist.