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Monticello unveiled the restoration of Mulberry Row in 2015, which includes the re-creation of two slave-related buildings, the “storehouse for iron” and the Hemings cabin. In May 2015, more than 100 descendants of enslaved families participated in a tree-planting ceremony to commemorate the new buildings.
And today, Hemings’ room is being restored for eventual public viewing. Monticello’s curators are working diligently to incorporate Hemings’ life as part of Jefferson’s comprehensive story, which counters old newspaper accounts citing Hemings as Jefferson’s “concubine."
Gayle Jessup White, Monticello’s Community Engagement Officer, is a descendant of the Hemings and Jefferson families and an integral part of Monticello’s African American legacy: Sally Hemings was White’s great-great-great-great aunt.
White first learned of her Jefferson family lineage as a young girl and years later, she still ponders the emotional complexities associated with Jefferson, the third president of the United States, the author of the Declaration of Independence — and an unapologetic proprietor who enslaved 600 people.
“As an African American descendant, I have mixed feelings — Thomas Jefferson was a slave holder,” White said.
White took the job at Monticello in July, 2016 and says her role is to help build a bridge between Monticello and the local community.
Last year, Monticello, along with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Virginia, hosted a public race summit entitled, Memory, Mourning, Mobilization: Legacies of Slavery and Freedom in America. It featured leading academics like Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Annette Gordon-Reed, artists like Nikki Giovanni, activists like Bree Newsome, descendants of Monticello’s enslaved families and community members.
White said the local African American community has not always embraced Monticello because Jefferson was a slave owner.
On a sunny weekday this spring, Monticello tour guide Tom Nash spoke to a group of white tourists and shared stories about slavery on the sprawling Jefferson plantation.
Why did some slaves want to pass for white when they were freed?
Why did Jefferson own slaves and write that all men are created equal?
How many slaves did Jefferson set free?
Meanwhile, Hallock said the physical evidence shows that Sally Hemings probably lived a higher-level lifestyle than other enslaved people on Jefferson’s plantation. Still, her room had no windows and would have been dark, damp and uncomfortable.
On July 4, Monticello will host its 55th annual Independence Day Celebration and Naturalization Ceremony. Seventy people from more than 30 countries - from Afghanistan to Vietnam – will become U.S. citizens during the Monticello mountaintop event.
Mary Magdalen Reid McPherson, 101, of Petoskey, was born on Dec. 31, 1906, and went home to the Lord on Oct. 5, 2008.
Magdalen ("Maggie") was preceded in death by her parents, Dan and Mary Margaret Weir Reid; her husband, Theodore A. McPherson; her siblings, Marie Asselin, Pierson Reid, Agnes Lister and Evelyn Blair; and her son-in-law, Bruce Behrendt.
She is survived by her children, Robert T. (Madeleine) McPherson and Mary Lou Behrendt; her grandchildren, Lynn Behrendt Hughes, Bradley Behrendt, Brett Behrendt, Thomas (Rebecca) McPherson, and Heather McPherson (Paul) Richards; and her great-grandchildren, Meaghan Hughes McMann and Jack Hughes, Joseph, Carley, Gina and Gabriella Richards, Sydney, Catriona and Nataliya McPherson, Nicholas and Mykaela Behrendt.
Maggie and Ted made the Round Lake home that they built by hand a summer home of fun and adventure for their many guests, especially their grandchildren. Though small in stature, she will also be remembered for her enormous personality and extraordinary (sometimes shocking) strength. Her gifts were hospitality and a servant's heart. Maggie was faithful. She knew and loved the Lord and has been made perfect (Philippians 3:21). To God be all glory, praise and honor.
A memorial service will be 1 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 9, in the Adoration Chapel of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church. Interment will be in St. Francis Cemetery.
Arrangements are by Stone Funeral Home. Friends wishing to share condolences with the family may do so online at www.stonefuneralhomeinc.com.
An Orleans Parish judge on Monday issued a subpoena to District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro, ordering him to testify about deals that his office allegedly concealed that gave leniency to a pair of witnesses in a murder trial last year.
View full sizeTimes-Picayune archiveDistrict Attorney Leon Cannizzaro has said his office has come a long way in improving practices for turning over evidence since the Harry Connick era, the tactics of which have now come under U.S. Supreme Court scrutiny three times in 16 years.
Criminal District Judge Julian Parker set a Dec. 7 hearing date for Cannizzaro to take the stand about a phone call he made to Lafayette prosecutors that appears to have played a role in helping one witness, Morris Greene, get sprung from prison a decade before his scheduled release.
Greene, a jailhouse snitch, and Joseph Allen were the two crucial witnesses in a trial that sent Jamaal Tucker, 27, away for life last November for the 2008 murder of David Sisolak Jr. outside an Algiers public housing development.
Cannizzaro's office had charged Allen with perjury stemming from his refusal to identify Tucker in an earlier trial that ended with a hung jury. Allen would have faced five to 40 years in prison if convicted on the perjury charge. After his testimony in the retrial, prosecutors let him plead guilty instead to criminal mischief, a misdemeanor. He received an 80-day jail sentence with credit for time served.
Michael Admirand, an attorney for Tucker, said the lowered sentences came to light only after the trial. Cannizzaro's office declined to comment on the case, citing an ongoing criminal proceeding.
The case is the latest to raise questions about how the Orleans Parish DA's office treats constitutional requirements for disclosing evidence favorable to a criminal defendant.
Cannizzaro has said his office has come a long way in improving practices for turning over evidence since the Harry Connick era, the tactics of which have now come under U.S. Supreme Court scrutiny three times in 16 years.
Yet last week, prosecutors waited until the middle of trial to reveal a deal with a witness to an alleged attempted murder. A day earlier, U.S. Supreme Court justices ridiculed an assistant district attorney's argument that Connick's office acted legally when it failed to turn over evidence in a 1995 murder trial.
The high court has ruled that prosecutors must turn over all evidence favorable to the defense, including deals with witnesses for leniency or other potential favors.
Prosecutors at Tucker's trial alleged that Sisolak, 25, was trying to buy drugs from Tucker, who became paranoid and shot Sisolak in the side of the head as he sat in a parked car on Hero Street. Greene testified at length that Tucker confessed to him while they did jail time together.
"No, I haven't been promised or offered anything. I did that out of the goodness of my heart, you know what I'm saying," Greene testified. "I caught my charge in Lafayette Parish. It has nothing to do with Orleans Parish. Orleans district attorney can't do nothing for me, man."
At the time, Greene was serving the fourth year of a mandatory 15-year prison term after pleading guilty to armed robbery in Lafayette. Following his testimony against Tucker, Lafayette Parish prosecutors let him withdraw that plea and instead plead guilty to two counts of felony theft. He was released in May.
During an April 5 hearing over the switch, Lafayette Parish prosecutor J.N. Prather Jr. cited a phone call with Cannizzaro.
"...Judge, as a result of phone conversations with the district attorney from Orleans Parish, which is Cannizzaro -- and as a result of indication from this office (that) additional homicides were disposed of as a result of some information being had ... the State's amenable to amending the sentence that was imposed on Mr. Greene," Prather said.
Orleans Parish Assistant District Attorney Matthew Caplan insisted at a hearing Monday that Prather was referring to Lafayette cases as the "additional homicides" that sparked the lower sentence, and that Cannizzaro merely confirmed to Lafayette prosecutors that Greene helped convict Tucker.
"I believe there's a lot more to this than appears in this transcript," the judge said.
Parker agreed to issue subpoenas for Cannizzaro, Prather, an attorney for Allen and then-prosecutor Eusi Phillips, who is now a private attorney.
During closing arguments in Tucker's trial, Phillips told the jury that "in the end all of this comes down to those two people that they are so concerned about, Morris Greene and Joseph Allen, and I'm going to tell how it comes down to them. Because unless they can explain to you why these people are lying or why their stories (don't) make sense, then they know what the verdict is going to be and they can't explain it."
Last week, Cannizzaro insisted his office acted properly when it waited until the middle of a trial to tell a defense attorney about its deal with the victim and lone eyewitness in a December 2010 shooting in eastern New Orleans. Cannizzaro told The Times-Picayune his office didn't initially reveal the deal, which was inked in August, because Smith's lawyer never asked.
"The defense attorney has to request it, and if he doesn't, we're not obligated to give it to him," Cannizzaro said last week.
But Supreme Court rulings, including a 1995 case from Orleans Parish, have made clear the government must turn over such "impeachment" evidence on its own.
Cannizzaro "misunderstood the question" from the newspaper, his spokesman, Christopher Bowman, said Monday.
"That's well-settled law ... that a defendant or his attorney does not have to request so-called Brady material. That is the practice of our office."
Send announcements of community events to tjones@thetimesnews.com. Include complete information. Items also can be mailed to Times-News, Attn.: Alamance Scene, P.O. Box 481, Burlington NC 27216; or dropped off at our office, 707 S. Main St., Burlington. Items are published once in appropriate proximity to events or reservation deadlines. To add an event to our online calendar, go to www.thetimesnews.com/calendar, sign in or register an account, and add your information.
Village of Alamance aldermen will hold a work session at 7 a.m. Wednesday, May 2, at Town Hall, 2874 Rob Shepherd Drive, Alamance. The topic of discussion will be the fiscal 2018–19 budget, trash and website requests for proposals.
VFW Post 10607, 634 W. Webb Ave., Burlington, will hold its regular monthly meeting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 3.
Positive Attitude Youth Center, 229 N. Graham-Hopedale Road, Burlington, will hold its 24th Annual Banquet at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 10. This year’s theme is “Characteristics of Success.” A panel will feature 2D Consulting CEO Trip Durham, Impact Alamance President Tracey Grayzer and District Attorney Pat Nadolski. This year’s fundraising goal is $35,000 to fund after-school, daycare, Positive Day School (third to 12th grade), summer enrichment and Cub Scouts; the center averages 100 students daily across these programs. For more information or to attend, send email to positiveattitude@att.net, call 336-222-6066, or come May 10 and pay at the door.
Beautiful Colonial cottage right in the heart of Historic Belhaven! Come see the 4 bedroom, 3 bath home tastefully renovated while preserving the “old house” charm. As you enter the home you will find the spacious living room with fireplace and dining room with great natural light. Off the dining is the recently renovated kitchen with stainless appliances, solid concrete counter tops, and tons of storage. There is a very quaint breakfast nook by the French doors to the back yard with a large deck and scored/ stained concrete patio perfect for entertaining. The private master suite has an amazing bath added just a few years ago with jetted tub, shower, and separate vanities. On the front of the home there is a cozy den next to the full hall bath. Laundry with sink and storage area is on the main floor. Upstairs there are three bedrooms, one bath, and an additional studio/ office. Fantastic opportunity just two blocks from Laurel park. Make your appointment today!
Quick update on Bellevue Towers. They are at 46 sales year to date – totaling $20.2 million in sales for 2012. Last year they sold 144 units totaling $89 million. With over 260 units sold, watch the Towers continue to have success.
One Main Street is down to just 5 units for sale. They should be wrapped up by the end of summer.
Washington Square has sold 240 units leaving a total of 136 units left for sale.
Have questions? We’ve got answers! Feel free to contact us.
Strahm will still get his chance to start — in spring training.
At the moment, he is exclusively a relief pitcher — because the Royals are back to focusing on now.
For good reason, too. The Royals beat the Yankees 8-5 on Monday. Combined with Baltimore's loss to Toronto, the Royals are now two games out of the second wild card, the closest they've been since this wild run began 18 wins in 22 games ago.
Recent call-up Matt Strahm discusses his growing Twitter following and how likes the jitters to help get the adrenaline going.
The Royals remain unlikely to make the playoffs. They began the workweek three games out of the playoffs, one of seven teams holding or close enough to a wild card spot to dream. That’s not just the projections of various computer models. It’s the honest judgment of a team whose best stretch in two years has brought them only to the edge of the playoff race.
But, this much should be said — if the Royals do get in, they’ll be a mother of an opponent for somebody.
And, even if we stay in the moment, they are the last team that contenders like the Red Sox, Tigers, and especially the Orioles and Astros want to see making this move.
For crying out loud — the bullpen just completed the longest scoreless streak since before the Royals even existed, and Wade Davis has been on the disabled list.
Some of the names are different, but this is mostly the same group operating precisely the same plan that went 23-8 in the last two postseasons. In that time, three teams holding or contending for playoff spots have been eliminated by the Royals. The Tigers have lost nine of 13 against the Royals, one year after Kansas City ended Detroit’s vise grip of the American League Central.
The strengths of the Royals are coming more into focus, and the weaknesses are at least temporarily being muffled. On Sunday, they won on another bunch-hitting rally in which their first run scored on a ground ball that did not even reach the pitcher’s mound. On Monday, they scored their first run on a ground ball that reached about five feet behind the pitcher’s mound.
They are scoring with speed, and with grounders finding holes, and often in ways you wouldn’t normally expect — that rally in Boston included a walk by Sal Perez, and a three-run triple by Raul Mondesi.
The rotation remains the team’s biggest weakness, but it hasn’t been a problem in nearly four weeks. Starting on Aug. 4, Royals starting pitchers have only given up more than three earned runs three times.
Those old Royals — the ones that had executives planning on starting Strahm some in September — had five separate streaks of giving up more than three earned runs in three consecutive games.
The Royals are making this late push on guts and belief and experience, but the attention on an inspirational insect clouds some the actual baseball happening. Like Jarrod Dyson said the other day, if it was about a third-generation bug, the players could stop stretching and lifting weights and generally caring.
Their batting average on balls in play, which is typically used as an indication of luck, has actually gone down slightly during the hot streak. The biggest difference between an offense that was averaging a league-worst 3.8 runs per game and has been working at a five-run average during the hot streak is power — .395 slugging before, and .426 slugging since.
Another point of optimism is in the schedule. Whether you go by remaining home games (and the Royals still have baseball’s biggest home-road split) or games against contenders, the Royals have the easiest schedule among the seven teams holding or close to a wild card spot.
Look, this is still a longshot. Just as the Royals were always one prolonged stretch like this from contention, they are now one 2-5 week from taking on what would almost certainly be too much water to stay afloat. The bottom of their order remains something like an advance-two-spaces-for-free card for opposing pitchers, and the rotation is still earning trust.
But they have positioned themselves as baseball’s most dangerous longshot, and made the last month of the season about the scoreboard instead of glorified tryouts for 2017.
Not bad for a team many wanted to sell pieces at the trade deadline.
Published: Dec. 23, 2014 at 06:06 p.m.
Updated: Dec. 23, 2014 at 07:22 p.m.
Ben Tate is back on the street.
The Vikings have released the veteran running back less than a month after claiming him off waivers from the Cleveland Browns, per the league's transaction wire.
Tate was cut free after amassing just 38 yards off 13 attempts over three appearances for Minnesota. His 2.9 yards per carry were even lower than the paltry 3.1 yards per tote he accounted for in eight games with the Browns, who surprised many by releasing the former Texans runner after Week 11.
It's not a good sign that Tate has been shipped out of town by two teams in less than a month. Whispers of a bad attitude in Cleveland don't help, but even more concerning is the apparent on-field decline for a runner still just 26 years old.
Tate hasn't been healthy this season, which has contributed to his ugly play. If the playoff-bound Colts and Cardinals don't come calling, we expect another team to take a long look this offseason in order to find out if Tate is worth keeping around for 2015.
Rafael Nadal gored YouTuber Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-2, 6-4, 6-0 today. Their Australian Open semifinal match took just 1:46, but in that span the winner erected a monument to one of tennis’s historic shots: the Rafa banana forehand. Above is as pristine a specimen as has ever appeared in nature.
Here are the general conditions for the banana. The opponent has hit a ball into the ad-court, so fast that any shirt-sleeved right-handed coward would have just allowed the winner on sight. It’s coming cross-court at an angle that will yank Rafa all the way off the baseline. The Spaniard is sprinting (or, surface permitting, skidding) out past the doubles alley to intercept it. You don’t even have a chance to wonder if he’ll get there. Because abruptly the feet are no longer the spectacle—it’s the lashing left arm, coming up and around the ball to give it occult shape. Somehow the ball is headed back with so much side spin that it bends in the air—hence the banana—around the sideline, maybe even around the net post; and with so much top spin that it dips right down to kiss the opposing corner. Only the fastest players could do chase down the ball, and only this damn spin djinn could massage it into the perfect landing spot. He makes your winner his winner. It’s his signature, both sickening and majestic.
Tsitsipas hit as pretty a cross-court angle as he could have, but Rafa just found it and returned to sender at 92 mph. The ball screamed in between the net post and the ump’s chair. It never looked like it could land inside the paint until it did, fooling the observer just the way all the best bananas do.
In the next set he hit banana number two. This time, right off a serve—and not any serve, but one he actually misread. That initial step out in the wrong direction sent him into scrambling banana mode all over again, a mistake that has benefited YouTube posterity.
Note to John McEnroe: this is the only good way to appreciate Rafael’s banana in public. More of this and less of the voyeuristic ogling you tried to pull off court today.
From graphic battle footage to interviews with the families Marines left behind, join a Marine company in the thick of the War on Terror. We'll take you to the battlefield and the home front, where the families of these Marines are American heroes, too.
From graphic battle footage to interviews with the families they left behind, join a Marine company in the thick of the War on Terror.
LAS VEGAS (AP) One year ago, the Vegas Golden Knights were in the midst of forming their first team. On Sunday, they were in the middle of the free-agent market as they look to fine-tune the roster for another run at the Stanley Cup Final.
The defending Western Conference champions signed veteran forward Paul Stastny to a reported three-year, $19.5 million contract, hours after losing David Perron.
Stastny totaled 53 points (16 goals, 37 assists) in 82 games last season, appearing in 63 games with the St. Louis Blues before being acquired by the Winnipeg Jets on Feb. 26. During the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs, the 32-year-old Quebec City native recorded a career-high 15 points (six goals, nine assists) and helped Winnipeg reach the Western Conference Final before losing to Vegas in five games.
During his 12-year NHL career, Stastny has 220 goals and 426 assists, with the 646 points ranking 33rd among active players.
The addition of Stastny figures to take some pressure off top-line scorers William Karlsson, a restricted free agent who is expected to ink a new deal with Vegas, Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith.
The second-year team also locked up bruising forward Ryan Reaves, who was acquired in a trade with Pittsburgh in February and proved to be an asset during the playoffs, and came to terms with free-agent defenseman Nick Holden, who McPhee said will fit in nicely after the departure of free agent Luca Sbisa.
Both Reaves and Holden’s two-year contracts are reportedly worth a little more than $2 million per season.
McPhee said the team also has signed forwards Brandon Pirri, Daniel Carr, Alex Gallant and Curtis McKenzie, defenseman Jimmy Oligny and goaltenders Maxime Lagace and Zach Fucale.
Meanwhile, after turning in a career season with the Golden Knights, Perron agreed to a four-year, $16 million contract to return to the St. Louis Blues, while veteran forward James Neal, an unrestricted free agent, remained in limbo. Neal, who finished with 25 goals and 44 points in 71 games at the end of his six-year, $30 million deal, is 31 years old and is looking for a longer-term contract than the Golden Knights were reportedly willing to offer.
Diplomatic relations between two of the Middle East's powerhouses may be at a new low but a military conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia is not a possibility, Iran's foreign minister said on Wednesday.
Relations between the two countries, which are largely divided down sectarian lines with Shiite-majority Iran vying for influence in the Middle East against Sunni-led Saudi Arabia, hit a low point earlier this month following the Saudi execution of a leading Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
In retaliation for the execution, the Saudi embassy in Tehran was attacked and, despite condemnation from the Iranian government on the attack, Saudi severed diplomatic relations.
A war of words has followed but Iran's foreign minister tried to assuage fears that a deeper military conflict could be brewing.
"(Will there be a war?) No. I think our Saudi neighbors need to realize that confrontation is in the interest of nobody," Javad Zarif said, speaking at a panel on Iran's future at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

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