Responding to a flood of emails from listeners, this week an out-of-character program discussing the recent events at Charlottesville.
Further Reading
- "Charlottesville: Why Jefferson Matters" by Annette Gordon-Reed
- "Most Blessed of the Patriarchs": Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination by Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf
- Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy Paperback by Annette Gordon-Reed
- The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family Paperback by Annette Gordon-Reed
- VICE News Tonight: Charlottesville: Race and Terror
- National Museum of African American History & Culture
- New York Times: "Why Lee Should Go, and Washington Should Stay" by Jon Meacham
- New York Times: "Confederate Statues and ‘Our’ History" by Eric Foner
- The Guardian: "'The civil war lies on us like a sleeping dragon': America's deadly divide - and why it has returned" by David Blight
Thomas Jefferson: Weeping for America
The Jefferson Watch
The ugly parade of American nazism that took place at Charlottesville on August 12th could have happened anywhere: Anaheim, Detroit, Miami, Denver. I don’t know if the organizers consciously chose to take their hate right into the heart of Jefferson’s dream for America, but that was its effect on me. Like every other reasonably enlightened American I was horrified by what happened in Charlottesville, still more horrified by our current president’s coy flirtation with the darkest forces still awash in America.
Read this week's Jefferson Watch essay, "Thomas Jefferson: Weeping for America."
What Would Jefferson Do?
“Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference!”
Tune in to your local public radio or join the 1776 Club to hear this episode of What Would Thomas Jefferson Do?
On the one hand, Jefferson wrote perhaps the most important American directive: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," but he also believed that America could never become a truly bi-racial republic, and during his lifetime he owned over 200 enslaved people. This week, Clay Jenkinson and Joseph Ellis discuss this uncomfortable twin legacy of Thomas Jefferson that we still wrestle with today.
In an earlier program, the Thomas Jefferson Hour presented a discussion between Clay Jenkinson and Professor Joseph Ellis about monuments and the potential removal of some, and how we as citizens can come to better understand this issue. This week we present thoughts on this subject received from our listeners.
"But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
— Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia
We discuss Jefferson’s only published book, Notes on the State of Virginia. Jefferson completed his first draft of the book in 1781 and first published it anonymously in Paris in 1785. It is widely considered the most important American book published before 1800.
"I'm like everyone else, I'm in the middle. I see some benefits on both edges of the spectrum, but I don't want either of them to prevail."
— Clay S. Jenkinson
Clay S. Jenkinson asked listeners to rate, on a scale of 1 to 10, how alarmed they are about the current state of political affairs in the United States. Rather than just giving a number, many listeners responded with many thoughtful letters. This week we share and read portions from 17 of those letters.