Blog - Slavery

The Fun of Living Together

Posted by Roberta Grimes • March 20, 2017 • 8 Comments

The point of figuring out what happens after death is that you finally learn how to live. You start thinking on an eternal scale! Far from losing interest in the things of this world, you care so much more about all of humanity; and when you are thinking spiritually, you can see the world’s problems... Read More

Slavery and Abortion

Posted by Roberta Grimes • August 08, 2016 • 47 Comments

I must apologize. I have been cowardly about saying this for far too long. Friends have insisted to me that I can’t talk about abortion because I will lose the respect of the very people I want most to help; but this post is just like all the other posts here. There are truths being... Read More

Slavery, Abortion, and Cecil

Posted by Roberta Grimes • August 13, 2015 • 25 Comments

Long before I knew that my primary spirit guide had once been Thomas Jefferson, I loved the man. My 1993 Doubleday novel, My Thomas, was written from the adoring viewpoint of his wife. And before I could write so tenderly about someone who had been a slaveholder, I had to do research and satisfy myself... Read More

Jefferson, Asperger’s, and Race

Posted by Roberta Grimes • July 15, 2014 • 0 Comment

My husband of forty-two years is a high-functioning Asperger’s person. Asperger’s Syndrome is a disorder on the autism spectrum whose sufferers tend to be very bright but often have trouble relating to others. A book published in 2000 called Diagnosing Jefferson makes a compelling case that our third president was another extraordinary man whose blessing... Read More

The Sally Hemings Question

Posted by Roberta Grimes • July 07, 2014 • 0 Comment

It doesn’t matter to me who fathered Sally Hemings’s children. Seeing how devastated Thomas Jefferson was by the death of his wife at thirty-three, at one time I even thought that if he had managed to find a new love later in life, that was fine and none of us had the right to judge... Read More

Thomas Jefferson and Slavery

Posted by Roberta Grimes • January 25, 2014 • 0 Comment

Cultural realities shape our lives in ways that become so ingrained that we often don’t see evils for the evils they are. When you and I look around, we can see lots of things about present-day America that are likely to appall our descendants, from overstuffed prisons and third-trimester abortions to vast disparities in wealth... Read More