Jefferson plot excludes blacks

The official descendants of one of the US's most revered founders, Thomas Jefferson, have beaten off an attempt by relatives of a family slave to be included in their society and granted burial rights in the ancestral graveyard.

At a rancorous private meeting, with accusations of racism flying, the Monticello Association voted overwhelmingly to exclude the descendants of Sally Hemings, some of whose children are thought to have been fathered by Jefferson, the third president.

The vote was meant to end the wrangling bedevilling the association, which is in charge of the Jefferson cemetery at Monticello, his home in Virginia, but it shows every sign of having made matters worse.

"They want the Hemingses to give up and all the Monticello reunions to go back to being sort of country-club Republican white guys in blue blazers sitting around drinking on the lawn," said Lucian Truscott, the association member who has championed the Hemings cause.

DNA tests three years ago suggested that Hemings' son Eston did have Jefferson blood, but critics suggest that the president's young brother Randolf was the most likely father.

The association has offered the Hemings family its own separate burial plot on the estate. "Nothing's changed in 200 years, has it?" sighed one of them, Julia Jefferson Westereinen. "You've got to sit in the back of the bus."

The dispute was worsened by an email sent to Mr Truscott by John Works, a former association president, showing a black face with a zip for a mouth. Mr Works apologised and said the colour was irrelevant: he was just advising discretion.