Naturally, not everyone agrees with the premise of Jefferson's Children. There were many mixed-race children born during those days. Every black family can trace their history back to one of them. That's the reason there are so many varieties of colors of black people. Black is just a word anyway.
Nobody's really black.
Nobody's really white. African-Americans have long accepted the story, passing it as oral history from one generation to the next. Daddy had always known who he was. When he was 10, he was told the family secret. The family secret is how it is referred to because by revealing it, you opened yourself up for denigration and attack by skeptics.