This is amazing. I love the voice you've given James, both grounded in time and detached from it enough that he has historical awareness. The section in Paris breaks my heart, as does Abigail Adams' horror of the very people she claims to want free. Beautifully, bravely done.
Abigail Adams' statement is from a letter of hers about watching a performance of Othello. (Her son John Quincy was even more extreme in this regard. On the one hand, he defended the escaped slaves of the Amistad; on the other, he repeatedly stated re: Othello that Desdemona had it coming for being so perverse to love a black man, and wrote some satiric doggerels about Sally Hemings and Jefferson's relationship with her.) It breaks my heart too, and would have been part of James' reality as much as slavery itself was. Thank you so much for reading and commenting!
Comment on Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (The Hemings Remix)
Petra
Posted Sun 29 Apr 2012 10:52PM EDT
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Selena
Posted Mon 30 Apr 2012 12:08AM EDT
Last Edited Mon 30 Apr 2012 12:09AM EDT
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