Alumnus and current writer for the Associated Press Jesse Holland spoke on his most recent book “The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African American Slaves in the White House” Thursday at the Overby Center.
Holland’s book explores the history of slaves in the White House, with special attention to how 10 out out the first 12 U.S. presidents owned slaves while in office.
“I spent a lot of time on Thomas Jefferson in the book and there’s actually a whole chapter dealing with that,” Holland said. “The reason why is because Thomas Jefferson was the first president to hold slaves inside the White House.”
One story Holland shared concerned Andrew Jackson. Jackson was unique in that he practiced owning slavery, yet was very protective of his slaves.
“The contradiction with Andrew Jackson is that while practicing human slavery, Andrew Jackson actually had one of the more caring relationships for his slaves than any of the presidents,” Holland said. “Andrew Jackson actually spent time and money defending his slaves from other slave owners.”
According to Holland, the problem presidents faced was either being financially wealthy or morally right when it came to slavery. Most of them chose to be financial stability.
“The thing that diminished my respect for them the most was going back and reading their memoirs and most of, if not all of the presidents, knew that slavery was morally wrong,” Holland said. “You have evidence in all of their documents that they knew slavery was wrong.”
Jesse Holland introduces his most recent book, “Slaves in the White House,” Thursday at Thacker Mountain Radio show. (Photo by: Timothy Steenwyk)
Holland spoke briefly about writing and preparing his book. He said it can be difficult to write about history because there are sometimes conflicting stories and there’s no way to tell which is true.
“When you deal with history, all you can deal with is the material that is available to you,” Holland said. “Make an educated guess and tell the best story given the material that’s available.”
Near the end of his lecture, Holland spoke about his own time at Ole Miss.
Holland said one of the things that helped him most was having access to so many different forms of journalism. Holland said it’s good for students to learn to tell stories in different ways through things like audio, radio and television. In the end though, knowing how to write well is the most important thing for journalists.
“I am able to change myself to change with the times because I learned early on that there is no one way to tell a story,” Holland said. “You can tell a story many different ways, you just have to be willing to think outside the box.”
A majority of the audience was composed of students.
“I thought he was very interesting and knowledgeable,” sophomore journalism major Song Xinyi said. “He has a lot of interesting experiences such as the AP and going to the White House and New York. I think that’s very important for journalism. You have to experience different places and broaden your horizons.”
Hannah Hurdle
