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Gayle Jessup White is a third generation Washingtonian whose lineage extends as far back as the indigenous people who inhabited the Chesapeake area before the arrival of Europeans. Her American roots are in Virginia going back to the Jamestown settlement, and in Maryland. Her international lineage is principally Nigerian and British. She attended the city’s private and public schools and attended Howard University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications. Although she lives in Richmond, Virginia, she still considers herself a “DC girl.”
A former award-winning TV reporter and anchor, Gayle began her career in journalism at The New York Times, where she interned in the Washington Bureau. She left the Times for Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, earning a Master of Science in Journalism. Gayle spent several years as a TV news reporter and anchor before becoming a public television producer and show host at her undergraduate alma mater, Howard.
After a 25-year career in communications, Gayle seized the opportunity to pursue her passion, history, beginning as an educator at Richmond’s Valentine Museum, and ultimately landing a position at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the non-profit organization that owns and operates Monticello, her ancestral home.
She began at the Foundation in 2014 as a Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies fellow, combing through old letters, documents, and records for clues to her family’s past. Two years later, she joined the staff as Community Engagement Officer, becoming a principal spokesperson and the first descendant of Jefferson and the families he enslaved to work for the Foundation. She is currently the Foundation’s public relations & community engagement officer.
Gayle 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 member of the Council of Historic Richmond, and the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical
Society. She also serves on the Poplar Forest African American Advisory Group.
She and her husband, retired Time Magazine columnist Jack White Jr have a blended family of four sons, one daughter, and seven granddaughters. Gayle’s son, Charles, lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he attended school.
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