Shannon Lanier, 21, is a sixth great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemings. He

Shannon Lanier, 21, is a sixth great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemings. He has traced his lineage through Jefferson's and Hemings' son, Madison. Some excerpts from Lanier's book "Jefferson's Children:"
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a fifth great-grandson of Thomas and Martha Jefferson: "It should be made clear right here, right now, that the Jefferson/Hemings story has been controversial only among white people. African-Americans have long accepted the story, passing it as oral history from one generation to the next."Priscilla Lanier, Shannon Lanier's mother, is a teacher with a master's degree in education, and is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings through their son, Madison: "I want people to recognize that black people come in all different shades and complexions ... Sometimes Shannon had problems when he was younger. The school kids would say, 'Your mom is white.' I told him, 'Take my birth certificate and point out the word Negro, that'll show them that I'm not white.' We always found it upsetting to have to prove who we were."Michele Cooley Quille, an assistant professor at John Hopkins University and a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings through their first-born, Thomas Woodson: "In 1992, my father, Robert Cooley, stood up before eleven Virginia historians at a University of Virginia conference and proclaimed, 'It's no story. I am a living descendant of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson.' Not a single one of them called Daddy a liar ... Daddy had always known who he was. When he was ten, he was told 'the family secret.' 'The family secret' is how it is referred to, because by revealing it, you opened yourself up for denigration and attack by skeptics."