I wish he had done more to free enslaved people: Thomas Jeffersons descendant on his familys complex legacy

Shannon LaNier, Jeffersons sixth great-grandson, reflects on his lineage and the role of African Americans in the nations foundingWhen the US turns 250 years old on Saturday, Shannon LaNier will be reckoning with a fundamental contradiction in its origin story - and his own.LaNier is the sixth great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson, the founding father who wrote the Declaration of Independence and became the third president.