Jefferson did not Father Kids with a Slave

A good new video explains:

"I really thought that Thomas Jefferson having children with Sally Hemings was a settled fact. I was wrong." –Ken

That's right, it is not a settled fact, and probably wrong.

Just today, a NY Times podcast said:

In the late '90s, we get a truly explosive book about Sally Hemings, one of Jefferson's slaves, by the historian Annette Gordon-Reed, and elevates all these accounts that have been lost that Jefferson in fact fathered children with Hemings. And then a year later, there's even DNA testing to prove that she's completely right.

This, uh, 200-year-old sex scandal returned to the headlines last week with news of scientific proof now.— that has confirmed Jefferson's sexual liaison with a woman named Sally Hemings. ...

Jefferson is being depicted variously as a rapist, a hypocrite, and a dirty old man.

No, this is not true. You can read the details on Wikipedia, or follow a court case that might resolve it. In short, DNA shows that some descendants of Hemings are also descendant from someone in Jefferson's family, but there is good reason to think it was a brother.