NEWS
By Laurie Willis | October 2, 1999
Most Thomas Jefferson Elementary School pupils may not grow up to be famous musicians, but officials at VH1 music television and TCI Communications of Baltimore want them to at least have a chance.In an hourlong program yesterday that featured a local jazz artist, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and a fifth-grader who played "Hot Cross Buns," VH1 and TCI officials donated equipment worth $25,000 to the western Baltimore school and announced a total of $75,000 in contributions to three other city schools.
FEATURES
By Marego Athans | May 29, 1999
It was judgment day at the University of Virginia. Michele Cooley, preparing to defend her dissertation before a panel of professors, glanced at the bust of Thomas Jefferson in the school's historic Rotunda. From his image, she drew strength -- for reasons someone looking at her might never have imagined.As a successful African-American earning her third degree at U.Va., Cooley had made a natural choice for her Ph.D. thesis: She had probed the factors responsible for black students' success.
NEWS
By JOHN KEILMAN | June 13, 1999
DAYTON, Ohio -- For generations, descendents of Thomas Woodson, a presumed slave of Thomas Jefferson, have claimed they are the flesh and blood of the nation's third president.While genetic tests administered last year failed to link the family with Jefferson, the scientist who did the research is trying again -- this time with the help of a Trotwood, Ohio, man.Thomas Woodson, a former Jefferson Township police chief and the great-great-great-grandson of the man whose name he shares, gave a blood sample to Eugene Foster.
NEWS
By Scott Shane | February 28, 1999
One was a reclusive farmer, son of a freed slave, grandson of an African prince, a self-taught man of extraordinary scientific talent at a time when intellectual pursuits were neither expected nor often tolerated in African-Americans.The other was secretary of state of the young American republic, author of the Declaration of Independence and other profound writings on human liberty -- and at the same time a Virginia planter and owner of slaves.As Benjamin Banneker sat down one day in August 1791 on his farm at Oella, Baltimore County, to write to Thomas Jefferson, it would have been hard to imagine two men more distant from one another in status and power.
SPORTS
By FROM STAFF REPORTS | October 17, 1999
ROCKVILLE -- Teams from Severna Park, River Hill, Calvert Hall and Spalding and standout runners Lee McDuff, Tenke Zoltani, Kate Frande and Dusty Lieb had big days at the huge Georgetown Prep Cross Country Classic yesterday in front of 3,000 fans.In the girls' seeded section, Dulaney's Zoltani showed no ill effects from leg injuries suffered three weeks ago at Hereford; unfortunately, she was in against one of the region's top runners, Erin Swain of Lake Braddock (Va.)Swain's time of 18 minutes, 13 seconds for the 3.1-mile course was easily the best turned in by a girl on the 11-event program and Zoltani's second-place finish in 18: 57 was the only other clocking under 19 minutes.
NEWS
By Michele Cooley-Quille | May 14, 1999
THE ANNUAL meeting of the Monticello Association is this weekend in Charlottesville, Va. Thanks to a distant cousin, Lucian K. Truscott IV, a best-selling author and an association member, my family was formally invited by the association -- for the first time -- to attend the annual reunion of descendants of the nation's third president, Thomas Jefferson. As guests, not as members.I am an eighth-generation descendant of Jefferson, a fact I have known since I was 12 years old.The clarity and certainty with which I know my progenitor is easy to understand.
NEWS
By Laurie Goodman | November 4, 1998
WASHINGTON - A renowned letter by Thomas Jefferson, which is the highlight of a traveling Library of Congress exhibition intended as a historical survey of religion and the founding of the nation, has been seized upon by conservative Christian leaders as support for their campaign for classroom prayer, taxpayer-financed vouchers for religious schools and posting the Ten Commandments in courtrooms.Some conservative groups and scholars say the library's analysis of Jefferson's letter is authoritative evidence that could be used in the courts to knock down the barrier between religion and government.
NEWS
By GREGORY KANE | July 11, 1998
Dear Camille Cosby:Please come to Baltimore. You need, desperately, to talk to a man named Kenneth Lee.According to the July 8 USA Today, you believe "America taught our son's killer to hate African-Americans." You then launched into a litany of America's "institutional" white racism sins: the images of holy people as white, the definition of black as evil, the inclusion of the movie "Birth of a Nation" in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 American films.In what must have been a real stretch, you even criticized U.S. currency as part of the problem.
NEWS
November 14, 1998
Jefferson's behavior with slave far worse than Clinton's affairAfter reading Pamela Prenger's letter , I didn't know whether to laugh or cry ("Jefferson-Hemings liaison nothing like president's affair," Nov. 8).Ms. Prenger basically wanted to make the point that President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky was a far greater sin than Thomas Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings because Jefferson "truly loved her," according to all the biographies she had read about Jefferson.I have no doubt that those biographies claimed that Jefferson loved Hemings.
FEATURES
By Laura Lippman | February 4, 1998
I was feeling pretty smug Monday after the Maryland Senate passed Sen. Perry Sfikas' bill to mandate study of the Irish potato famine in the public schools -- until I realized I didn't actually know anything about said famine. Couldn't name the decade, although I knew the century. Wasn't sure if the potato was in short supply, or if it was the only thing available when everything else was scarce.(I could spell potato, which put me one up on a former vice president.)So I decided to make a list of every bit of history I remember studying in Maryland's public schools.