At Jefferson's Home, Panelists Grapple With Slavery

Thomas Jefferson and his mountaintop home never cease to provide contradictions and complexities as America continues to wrestle with its history of slavery. Hawes Spencer reports.

The man who wrote that all men are created equal kept hundreds of humans as his property, and Marian Wright Edelman put it this way:

"He gave us the overture of our still-unfinished symphony as a nation."

Historians, journalists, and even modern dancers came to grapple with the legacy of slavery, in the culminating event for the 50th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Toya Wallace drove up from Durham.

"It's a much needed conversation, and I think it needs to be continued."

Panelist Ed Ayers smiled as he looked out on Monticello's West Lawn.

"I'm encouraged to see a couple of thousand people show up here on a Saturday morning to talk about some of the hardest things in American history."

For WCVE News, Hawes Spencer at Monticello.

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IMAGE: A reconstructed slave residence/workshop at Monticello. (Hawes Spencer)

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