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andrew hong - sally hemings lyrics

i am a slave in monticello
daughter of a slave and her master
i am less than a slave
i am a b-st-rd
but

i gave president thomas jefferson 4 children
i kept him warm at night
i was his secret, beloved wife
history remembers me as one half of a love story
two lovers from two different worlds
but listen, history is never in my favor

no, this was no love story
this was the story of my ascent
the story of my children’s futures
i was not swept up in his love
nor was i disgraced and raped

i mastered my master
i controlled jefferson
i won my life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
from the man who stole mine

how did i do it?
let me tell you a few rules:

no one extraordinary got there by being ordinary
no one rises by remaining seated
you can’t win a game created for you to lose
the only way to win is to defy the system
cheaters never win?
well, they win more than rule-followers
so what if it isn’t fair
one day my children gonna eat chocolate eclairs

i am no longer picking cotton
at age 13 i worked myself up to a house slave
and when my brother was taken to france
guess who was the second of the american minister to paris?
through manipulation, differentiation, sedation
i accompanied jefferson in france along the lines of martha and abigail

i get what i want, i do what i want
i punched my ticket to france not for my brother not for jefferson’s hand
i came here to france because here i could have a chance
in france blacks are free, slaves don’t exist, i could escape away from my past
france is the land of the free
france is the home of the brave
france is the place where i force jefferson to give me back my children
this is what power looks like
i am not at his mercy, no
he begs for me to stay with him
he’s at his knees for his slave

the thing that frightened him the most was my departure
always in sight
never out of reach
my life in free france was more trapped than virginia
at any moment i could’ve escaped
grasped freedom and held on to it
this is what jefferson feared the most

i won my children freedom in a country where kids like they weren’t free
no children of mine were supposed to have a future
i got more out of a negotiation than washington or any congressional committee

this is how you play the game
and this is how you win the game

but wait
i am still a victim of slavery
don’t think for a moment i was in love with him
let’s not pretend this was love
let’s not pretend this was some cinderella story
the moment he laid eyes on me i had only one choice
between being a worthless slab of meat and the queen of monticello
this was a decision between being another birther of b-st-rds and a mother of changemakers

i’m just a slave girl from virginia
my body lays unmarked, forgotten in the virginian foothills
my memory tarnished, erased
i’m the shame of monticello
his sons and daughters burned everything i left behind
my bedroom boarded and banished
now america knows nothing

could i write?
read?
was i beloved?
hated?
respected?
did i rest my head in the white house?
did i free any jefferson slaves?
did i draft laws?
did i topple regimes?
change the course of history?
america, you will never know
because america is too ashamed of my existence to bother to remember it

now, i all i am is dirt on the jefferson name
i am a simple-minded sl-t
jefferson’s sons and daughters told the story of me as not a story at all
who is sally hemings? they say
another slave, a hungry sl-t. nothing more
historians say i was a helpless slave
i was a victim
i was stolen, tortured
i had no choice, no power
to them i say this:

i slept in my own room in monticello
i was the secret wife of a founding father
i was at the arm of an american diplomat
i brought a president down to his knees
i used my power to manipulate history
i won my black children freedom and prosperity

this is how you win the game

yet my story, forgotten

- andrew hong lyrics

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