In On Juneteenth, Harvard historian Annette Gordon-Reed brilliantly meditates on the origin stories that we tell ourselves in an effort to avoid the nuances of history.

It is more than a small pleasure to see that Black historians who have been engaged in deep archival research for decades continue to produce field-changing work that ought to be the center of any national debate about how Americans reckon with our racial past.

Brands, New York Times Book Review, cover review Gordon-Reed has earned acclaim as one of the most important American historians of our time. Annette Gordon-Reed’s insightful, often touching reflection on the Black experience in Texas, starting with her own, lands between these two. The Education of Henry Adams is the second most influential memoir in American letters, after Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography. As our nation verges on recognizing June 19 as a national holiday, On Juneteenth is both an essential account and a stark reminder that the fight for equality is exigent and ongoing. In its concision, eloquence, and clear presentation of history, On Juneteenth vitally revises conventional renderings of Texas and national history. Reworking the traditional “Alamo” framework, she powerfully demonstrates, among other things, that the slave- and race-based economy not only defined the fractious era of Texas independence but precipitated the Mexican-American War and, indeed, the Civil War itself. All too aware of the stories of cowboys, ranchers, and oilmen that have long dominated the lore of the Lone Star State, Gordon-Reed-herself a Texas native and the descendant of enslaved people brought to Texas as early as the 1820s-forges a new and profoundly truthful narrative of her home state, with implications for us all.Ĭombining personal anecdotes with poignant facts gleaned from the annals of American history, Gordon-Reed shows how, from the earliest presence of Black people in Texas to the day in Galveston on June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger announced the end of legalized slavery in the state, African-Americans played an integral role in the Texas story. Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth provides a historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African-Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond. The essential, sweeping story of Juneteenth’s integral importance to American history, as told by a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and Texas native. Washington Post, TIME, NPR, Oprah Daily, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Kansas City Independent, Los Angeles Public Library, Washington Independent Review of Books, Spy, Audile, Biblioracle, AbeBooks.

Annette gordon reed on juneteenth