UK Libraries welcomes Gayle Jessup White for 2025 Earle C. Clements Lecture-Symposium

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 10, 2025) — On Tuesday, Sept. 16, University of Kentucky Libraries will welcome Gayle Jessup White, author of “Reclamation: Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant’s Search for Her Family’s Lasting Legacy,” for the 2025 Earle C. Clements Lecture-Symposium.

The first public relations and community engagement officer at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the nonprofit that owns and operates Monticello, White will discuss her 50-year journey to confirm her family’s oral history that they are descended from the country’s third president.

The Clements Lecture will be 5:30 p.m. in the Young Library Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public, and RSVPs are appreciated. “Reclamation” will be available for purchase at the event and White will sign copies after the lecture.

Growing up in Black middle-class Washington, D.C., White was 13 when she first heard the family lore. Fueled by personal loss and professional angst, she devoted herself to uncovering the truth, a commitment that ultimately led her to Monticello, Virginia, where she became the Thomas Jefferson Foundation’s first community engagement officer.

A former award-winning television reporter and anchor, White started her career at the New York Times. She has written and spoken extensively about her work at Monticello, the legacies of slavery and her family’s contributions to American history. 

White serves on Virginia’s Citizens Advisory Council on Furnishing and Interpreting the Executive Mansion, where she is founding chair of the Descendant Committee. She is also a board member of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, Charlottesville Live Arts and Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest.

The annual Clements Lecture-Symposium honors the legacy of Earle C. Clements, who served as governor of Kentucky and represented the state in the U.S. House and Senate. Throughout his long and distinguished political career, Clements embodied a spirit of service, a dedication to public life and a commitment to productive political discourse. The Lecture-Symposium celebrates these ideals by welcoming renowned intellectuals and scholars in the areas of public policy and government.  

“Earle C. Clements believed in public service, and I am grateful that the Clements Abell family has supported UK Libraries in a way that allows us to give back to the community,” said Deirdre Scaggs, associate dean for research and discovery at UK Libraries. “By bringing in speakers with a national voice we are promoting the ideals that Clements believed in and supporting positive discourse in American politics.”

In 2007, a gift by Abell established the Earl C. Clements Graduate Research Fellowship, which supports graduate student research in UK Libraries’ Wendell H. Ford Public Policy Research Center. A 2015 gift to the National Archives established the Earle C. Clements Innovation in Education Award. The award recognizes Kentucky’s best history and civics teachers and is given every year by the National Archives in partnership with the Ford Center. In 2016, a $500,000 gift established the Earle C. Clements Memorial Endowment Fund, which is used to organize the Lecture-Symposium and support UK Libraries’ programs in public policy, government and archival research. 

As the premier research library in the Commonwealth, UK Libraries empowers lifelong learners to discover, create and connect by providing ever-expanding access to quality information and collaborating with academic and creative communities worldwide to advance knowledge, enhance scholarship and preserve the history and culture of the Commonwealth. More information about UK Libraries can be found on its website.