Chapter 24 The Hemingses of Monticello
Lula slept in the next morning. At ten, she was still in her housecoat, taking her coffee, when an email arrived from James Wright. She almost deleted it right away. It didn’t matter how sorry James was. After what his two boys had done, the Wright family was no longer welcome on the Concerned Parents Committee. But Lula was a Christian woman, she reminded herself. At the very least, she should acknowledge James’s apology.
When she opened the email, she found no words of contrition—only a link. Assuming it led to an e-card, she clicked, only to find herself faced with a video clip from the morning news.
Mitch Sweeney was bending down to speak into a microphone set up in front of the Troy courthouse. He appeared to be reading from an index card that he held in one hand. International Movie Star Apologizes to Hometown screamed the chyron.
“Don’t you dare do it, you mouth-breathing moron,” Lula warned the digital Mitch as she hit play.
“I want to offer my heartfelt apologies to the Wright family, to Ms. Bella Cummings, who was injured last night at the rally, and to the entire town of Troy. I take full responsibility for my terrible actions, and I hope it’s clear to all that violence was not and will never be the answer.”
Mitch Sweeney glanced back at a fierce old woman standing directly behind him. Had Lula been chewing her toast at that moment, she would have certainly gagged at the sight of Wilma Jean Cummings looking disturbingly undemented. That’s who’d gotten to Mitch. Lord only knew what she’d threatened him with.
“I have consulted with Ms. Cummings’s lawyer, and Bella has graciously declined to press charges. In return, I will be sponsoring the upcoming Wainwright family reunion, which will take place right here in Jackson Square next Saturday at noon. Everyone in the state of Georgia is welcome to attend. I will be there, signing autographs and serving pie. Hope to see y’all there.”
“Mitch! Mitch!” a reporter called out as he stepped back from the mic. “Does this mean you’re no longer opposing the statue’s removal?”
Mitch returned to the mic. “Yes, ma’am, that is precisely what it means.”
“What made you change your mind?”
Suddenly, the showman seemed to be gone. The man standing at the mic was just an overgrown country boy in overpriced jeans. For a moment, it wasn’t clear if he was going to answer. “I see y’all looking at my head wound and thinking my brains must have spilled out on the stage yesterday.” He pointed to the long line of stitches on his forehead and the crowd tittered. “Well, I promise, the few brain cells I ever had are still in there. I spent about an hour last night getting stitched up like Frankenstein by a fellow from Queens—that’s in New York City, in case you’re wondering. But don’t go holding that against him. None of us get to decide where we’re born. Anyways, Dr. Chokshi told me that this town has a really hard time getting doctors to move here because people take one look at our Confederate statue and figure they aren’t welcome. I know there are folks who think that’s a bonus, but it made me feel terrible. As far as I’m concerned, it goes against everything the South is supposed to stand for. We’re supposed to be the nice people, aren’t we? How can we use phrases like Southern hospitality if we don’t really mean them? If we do, maybe we shouldn’t have statues that make people feel scared or unwanted. So all that’s just a long way of saying if the people of Troy decide Augustus should go, I will personally pay for his removal. Thank you.”
“Traitor!” It was total baloney. Mitch Sweeney was saving his butt and saying what they all wanted to hear. Pretending he cared about hospitality—please. The only thing that man cared about was his career.
Lula felt tears coming on. She wasn’t going to let this stand. But at that very moment, James Wright and Beverly Underwood appeared together on-screen along with the gay son. Lula’s biggest enemies had all joined forces. Adding insult to injury, Beverly looked gorgeous, and her hair was perfect. Lula knew better than to try to make an appointment with Val. None of those former cheerleaders would so much as speak to her. She had to get her hair done at the second-best salon in town.
“Hello, I’m Beverly Underwood.” Lula had to pause the video and ask the Lord for strength. The sound of Beverly’s prissy voice always drove her to distraction. “I’m a candidate for mayor here in Troy, and I’ve made it known that if I’m elected, I will have the statue of Augustus Wainwright removed from this park. I also happen to be a direct descendant of the statue’s subject. Until recently, a lot of folks thought my daughter and I were the last of the Wainwright line. But just last night more descendants made themselves known. Now I’m proud to be standing here with a couple of them. This is Mr. Isaac Wright, and beside Isaac is his father, Mr. James Wright. I’m proud to call both of them cousins—and I’m thrilled to announce that our family may be much bigger than anyone thought. Isaac was the one who made the discovery, so I’m going to step aside and let him tell you all about it.”
The boy approached the mic with no show of nervousness. “I’m Isaac Wright. A while back, I found this book in the library.” He held up a copy of The Hemingses of Monticello. “For years, people debated whether Thomas Jefferson had fathered six children with an enslaved woman named Sally Hemings. They said it was impossible. A great man like Jefferson would never do such a thing. Then DNA evidence proved with one hundred percent certainty that Hemings’s children were also Jefferson’s. Now, I don’t know about you, but that blew my mind. It called into question everything we’ve been taught. Not just about the men who founded this country, but also about who has the right to claim America’s heritage and history. We’ve been told that some people built this country, and the rest of us should just be grateful to live here. Those of us whose ancestors literally built the South always knew the truth. But after I finished The Hemingses of Monticello, I found myself wondering if there was another side of the story that wasn’t being told.
“I started doing research into my family tree. DNA testing has allowed us to solve mysteries that have lingered for centuries. And like many Black people in this country, the Wrights have a family tree that is filled with mysteries. All I knew for sure was that many members of my family worked at Avalon, the Wainwright plantation. But I’d heard rumors that we might have a rich, white ancestor, and I had a hunch that I wanted to follow. So I sent in a sample of my DNA, and when the results came back, they were clear as day. Augustus Wainwright, general in the Confederate Army, is my fifth great-grandfather. And if you are a Black person with roots in this county, he may be your grandfather, too.”
He looked to Beverly, and she stepped forward to the mic again. “If anyone out there thinks they may be related to us, we are inviting you to come to a family reunion here in Troy on Saturday, June third—”
Lula threw her phone at the wall. Every television station around would be at that reunion. It had all the makings of a 60 Minutes segment and a PBS documentary. There could even end up being a book.
None of this would have happened if that Neanderthal Logan Walsh hadn’t reached for a weapon. If he hadn’t dropped to his knee, Lula wouldn’t have screamed. Mitch wouldn’t have lunged forward and knocked that little busybody off the stage. The two boys would have been escorted out of the square—and everyone in the crowd would have recognized them as the troublemakers they were. There would have been no apology. No press conference. No ridiculous family reunion. No Beverly prancing around in front of the TV cameras like the goddamned queen of Georgia.
Lula took a deep breath. She could get things back on track. She was positive. But someone had to pay for the mistakes so far. So Lula picked up her phone and called Nathan Dugan.