Jefferson, Thomas

Cultural  

1. A political leader of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; one of the Founding Fathers; the leader of the Democratic-Republican party. Jefferson was principal author of the Declaration of Independence and served as president from 1801 to 1809, between John Adams and James Madison. He arranged for the Louisiana Purchase, founded the University of Virginia, and built the mansion Monticello. Jefferson is famed as a champion of political and religious freedom, but he was also a slaveholder. (See Jeffersonian democracy; Sally Hemings.)

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Example Sentences

Jefferson Thomas, one of nine Black students to integrate a Little Rock high school in America’s first major battle over school segregation, died in Columbus, Ohio, at age 67.

From Washington Times • Sep. 5, 2020

The author of 25 books - including works on Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and George Orwell - and countless articles and columns, Hitchens never lost his biting humor.

From Reuters • Dec. 16, 2011

Jefferson Thomas, 67, was one of the students who integrated Little Rock’s Central High in 1957.

From Newsweek • Jan. 1, 2011

In the end, there were only three colored students at Hall—Effie Jones, Elsie Robinson and Estella Thompson—and only two at Central—Carlotta Walls and Jefferson Thomas.

From "The Lions of Little Rock" by Kristin Levine

Carlotta Walls and Jefferson Thomas ultimately became graduates of Central along with Ernest Green.

From "Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High" by Melba Pattillo Beals