How is the relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson symbolic of the incinsistancy between American ideals and historical realities? What role did racism play in the long standing denial of the Hemings-jefferson relationship by both historians and jefferson family members? Why do you think this relationship remains so important to so many, descendants and non-descendants alike? In particulr, why do you think the revelation of Hemings ancestry caused so much upheaval in the Cooper family in the movie Jefferson Blood?