Shannon LaNier on the ‘Descendants’ Project: I Wanted to Hold a Mirror to America to Say, This Is What Our Country Has Become Because of Slavery

RUSH EXCERPT:
LaNIER: "They smithsonian put together this project with drew gardner to see what the descendants of living ancestors look like today. And so they had Thomas Jefferson and myself side by side, and I did not want to be Jefferson. I just wanted to hold a mirror to America to say, this is what our country has become because of slavery, because of people being enslaved, because of himself, being a slave owner. But I still wanted to show. I never thought I looked like the man, but then I saw that and it was astonishing. And I‘m an influencer. So to see it go viral. Over and over every year is just amazing to me to see how many people are like, yeah, you look like him. I‘m like, never thought that. But okay."