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On Juneteenth
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best History & Biography (2021)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. 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.
Combining 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.
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.
In its concision, eloquence, and clear presentation of history, On Juneteenth vitally revises conventional renderings of Texas and national history. Especially now that the U.S. recognizes Juneteenth (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.
Combining 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.
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.
In its concision, eloquence, and clear presentation of history, On Juneteenth vitally revises conventional renderings of Texas and national history. Especially now that the U.S. recognizes Juneteenth (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.
148 pages, Hardcover
First published May 4, 2021
About the author
Annette Gordon-Reed
23 books639 followersAnnette Gordon-Reed is a professor of law at New York Law School and a professor of history at Rutgers University. She is the author of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. She lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,431 reviews
August 22, 2024
better late than never!
i read this the day after juneteenth, but the truth is this little book is a must-read year-round, packing history and memoir and analysis into just 148 pages. it holds a contrast within itself — how annette gordon-reed can be a proud texan while remaining aware of the story of racism at its core — and manages to explore it more fully in a short time than some much longer books can claim.
bottom line: little books forever.
i read this the day after juneteenth, but the truth is this little book is a must-read year-round, packing history and memoir and analysis into just 148 pages. it holds a contrast within itself — how annette gordon-reed can be a proud texan while remaining aware of the story of racism at its core — and manages to explore it more fully in a short time than some much longer books can claim.
bottom line: little books forever.
November 30, 2021
Some people read to better themselves, some read to learn, some read to escape.
I read because life is messy and something about life's messiness appeals to me while reflected on a page. I read because I love the contradictory nature of humanity. How we can be full of good & evil, love & hate, appreciation & jealousy.
Reading has taught me that being righteous is pointless. Life never fails when it decides its time for you, & your righteousness, to become fools.
If life always succeeds at creating fools then history does as well. History—my words, not a dictionary definition—is chronicling, ideally, lived events from this same messy, but much different, real life.
The same messy, but much different, real life was examined in an edifying way by Annette Gordon-Reed—one of American's most distinguished Historians, winner of the Pulitzer Prize & National Book Award among other accolades—in her latest book, On Juneteenth.
She brings to light how the United States always provides & promotes an Anglicized version of history. One that dismisses the presence of enslaved Africans—or Africans general—prior to 1619. A version that doesn't mind the time to teach about Estebanico or places like St. Augustine in Florida.
She brings to light the messiness of certain Indigenous peoples—the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, & Seminole—owning enslaved Africans.
She shines a light on the flawed idea of a universal slave dialect. How history always lends itself to revision since some historians always decide to attempt the easy & digestible route.
America knows complexity makes it hard to look itself in the mirror, so it embraces every attempt to evade its reflection.
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
Perhaps the most important question Annette Gordon-Reed raises is the question that cultural studies people always ask: "What work is this story doing?"
On Juneteenth is placing history in its appropriate context. An essay collection that cautions against attempting to make the complex digestible. Against idolizing & mythologizing figures who are bound to disappoint you.
An essay collection that shows you can only hope to be a fool in this messy, but ever-changing, real life.
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
Joshua E. Mccoy wrote a wonderful article about On Juneteenth which you should read: https://moguldom.com/359321/on-junete...
He and I also had a wonderful conversation about this mind-shifting work: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRDSKDTKswM/
I read because life is messy and something about life's messiness appeals to me while reflected on a page. I read because I love the contradictory nature of humanity. How we can be full of good & evil, love & hate, appreciation & jealousy.
Reading has taught me that being righteous is pointless. Life never fails when it decides its time for you, & your righteousness, to become fools.
If life always succeeds at creating fools then history does as well. History—my words, not a dictionary definition—is chronicling, ideally, lived events from this same messy, but much different, real life.
The same messy, but much different, real life was examined in an edifying way by Annette Gordon-Reed—one of American's most distinguished Historians, winner of the Pulitzer Prize & National Book Award among other accolades—in her latest book, On Juneteenth.
She brings to light how the United States always provides & promotes an Anglicized version of history. One that dismisses the presence of enslaved Africans—or Africans general—prior to 1619. A version that doesn't mind the time to teach about Estebanico or places like St. Augustine in Florida.
She brings to light the messiness of certain Indigenous peoples—the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, & Seminole—owning enslaved Africans.
She shines a light on the flawed idea of a universal slave dialect. How history always lends itself to revision since some historians always decide to attempt the easy & digestible route.
America knows complexity makes it hard to look itself in the mirror, so it embraces every attempt to evade its reflection.
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
Perhaps the most important question Annette Gordon-Reed raises is the question that cultural studies people always ask: "What work is this story doing?"
On Juneteenth is placing history in its appropriate context. An essay collection that cautions against attempting to make the complex digestible. Against idolizing & mythologizing figures who are bound to disappoint you.
An essay collection that shows you can only hope to be a fool in this messy, but ever-changing, real life.
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
Joshua E. Mccoy wrote a wonderful article about On Juneteenth which you should read: https://moguldom.com/359321/on-junete...
He and I also had a wonderful conversation about this mind-shifting work: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRDSKDTKswM/
June 17, 2022
“June 19, 1865, shortened to ‘Juneteenth’, was the day that enslaved African-Americans in Texas were told that slavery had ended, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed, and just over two months after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox.”
The author is a law professor and historian and this book is a collection of essays covering the history of Texas, the origin stories of African Americans in the United States, Native Americans, the Alamo and, of course, Juneteenth, among other things. Since Juneteenth was just made a national holiday a lot has been written about it recently. What this book adds is a discussion of how the day has been celebrated in Texas. The book is very short, so none of the history is covered with a lot of depth. There are also family recollections. Particularly interesting was the story of her enrollment in an all white school when she was six.
In the coda to this collection the author writes, “The reader might ask, after all of this, what it is that I love about the state of Texas?” Her answer isn’t particularly persuasive, so I am just going to chalk it up to nostalgia. I note that she is not currently living in Texas. 3.5 stars
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
The author is a law professor and historian and this book is a collection of essays covering the history of Texas, the origin stories of African Americans in the United States, Native Americans, the Alamo and, of course, Juneteenth, among other things. Since Juneteenth was just made a national holiday a lot has been written about it recently. What this book adds is a discussion of how the day has been celebrated in Texas. The book is very short, so none of the history is covered with a lot of depth. There are also family recollections. Particularly interesting was the story of her enrollment in an all white school when she was six.
In the coda to this collection the author writes, “The reader might ask, after all of this, what it is that I love about the state of Texas?” Her answer isn’t particularly persuasive, so I am just going to chalk it up to nostalgia. I note that she is not currently living in Texas. 3.5 stars
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
May 13, 2021
Gordon-Reed is a proud Texan! But that does not mean that she applauds Texas’ treatment of people of color, particularly in the years before Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger announced the end of legalized slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865. In a series of short essays, she points out that Texas IS unique. “No other state brings together so many disparate and defining characteristics all in one—a state that shares a border with a foreign nation, a state with a long history of disputes between Europeans and an Indigenous population and between Anglo-Europeans and people of Spanish origin, a state that had existed as an independent nation, that had plantation-based slavery and legalized Jim Crow.”
Gordon-Reed recounts her life experiences where the lofty idealism stated in the Declaration of Independence fell away in the day-to-day interactions she knew growing up in Conroe, Texas. She revisits these experiences and highlights the fallibility of people in the past and present. She believes that they need to be addressed in order to move forward. Recommend.
Gordon-Reed recounts her life experiences where the lofty idealism stated in the Declaration of Independence fell away in the day-to-day interactions she knew growing up in Conroe, Texas. She revisits these experiences and highlights the fallibility of people in the past and present. She believes that they need to be addressed in order to move forward. Recommend.
July 15, 2021
3.5 Don't take this rating as my being critical of the work. It's very good and very informative, but it is a minor work by an esteemed historian -- a collection of essays, really. The basic question that frames the book is, how she, both as a Black woman and as a historian, can claim that she loves Texas given its racist history. Her answer takes her in a couple of directions: exploring the real history of Texas and how that history is -- and has been -- taught (her discussion of the Alamo is itself worth the price of admission); illuminating the history of African Americans in Texas from before it was a republic, through its admission into the United States, up to today; sharing her own experiences growing up Black in Texas; and providing insight into the roles history and narrative play in how Texans see their state.
I enjoyed listening to it, learned a lot, and felt that I had spent in the company of a very smart, knowledgeable, candid, and gracious individual. It was definitely time well spent. I have no reservations at all about recommending the book.
Update: Regarding my comment about the Alamo -- I hadn't been aware that Jim Bowie was a slave trader; or that James Travis was in "Texas" (it didn't exist yet) because he had abandoned his wife and children (and a lot of debt) in Alabama and had a warrant out for his arrest; or that Santa Ana wanted to abolish slavery, a position that generated strong opposition among White American settlers; or that Texas barred free Blacks from entering the state; and that all of this has been ignored in the Texas history curriculum. I bring it up now in this postscript because as I write this there is an effort by the Texas state legislature to gloss over the state's racist past. This is from the May 5 issue of The Texas Tribune: Mirroring moves by other red-state legislatures across the country, Texas Republicans are attempting to reach into classrooms and limit what public school students are taught about the nation's historical subjugation of people of color.
And now, a few short weeks later, the governor of Texas personally stepped in to cancel a book event about the Alamo that presented a fuller picture of the building and its mytho-cultural importance.
Sometimes it's nearly impossible to feel any sense of optimism at all for the country's future.
I enjoyed listening to it, learned a lot, and felt that I had spent in the company of a very smart, knowledgeable, candid, and gracious individual. It was definitely time well spent. I have no reservations at all about recommending the book.
Update: Regarding my comment about the Alamo -- I hadn't been aware that Jim Bowie was a slave trader; or that James Travis was in "Texas" (it didn't exist yet) because he had abandoned his wife and children (and a lot of debt) in Alabama and had a warrant out for his arrest; or that Santa Ana wanted to abolish slavery, a position that generated strong opposition among White American settlers; or that Texas barred free Blacks from entering the state; and that all of this has been ignored in the Texas history curriculum. I bring it up now in this postscript because as I write this there is an effort by the Texas state legislature to gloss over the state's racist past. This is from the May 5 issue of The Texas Tribune: Mirroring moves by other red-state legislatures across the country, Texas Republicans are attempting to reach into classrooms and limit what public school students are taught about the nation's historical subjugation of people of color.
And now, a few short weeks later, the governor of Texas personally stepped in to cancel a book event about the Alamo that presented a fuller picture of the building and its mytho-cultural importance.
Sometimes it's nearly impossible to feel any sense of optimism at all for the country's future.
May 7, 2021
On Juneteenth is a fantastic little book that provides not only a history of the Juneteenth holiday, but also history of Texas and their treatment of Black and Indigenous folks in the past, plus stories and insights from the author's own experiences growing up in Texas. If you're looking for an accessible history lesson that won't take you long to read but will pack a punch and leave you thinking about the legacy of that history into the present day, this is a great option. And the audio narration is lovely! I received an audio review copy of this book from Libro.FM. All opinions are my own.
June 19, 2023
On the original Juneteenth – June 19, 1865 – Union General Gordon Granger arrived at Galveston, Texas, and read out General Order No. 3 to a group of African Americans. The order reported the news of the two-year-old Emancipation Proclamation, and officially set free all enslaved people in Texas. It is the United States’ newest national holiday – one with a complicated history and heritage, as Annette Gordon-Reed makes clear in her book On Juneteenth.
Gordon-Reed, a professor of history at Rutgers University, has been one of the most celebrated scholars of Southern U.S. culture since at least 1997, when her book Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy was published. One year before the publication of the scientific study that indicated that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings had children together, Gordon-Reed offered a brilliant exposé of the limitations in the thinking of those who might try to claim that it was somehow “impossible” for Jefferson to have had an intimate relationship with an enslaved woman. Her subsequent work, such as The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (2008), shows how much more the discipline of history can teach us when historians set out to tell the whole story, inclusively rather than selectively.
Gordon-Reed grew up in Conroe, Texas, during segregation times, and therefore she is particularly well-suited to discuss the intricacies and contradictions of life in the state where the first Juneteenth took place. She points out that
No other state brings together so many disparate and defining characteristics all in one – a state that shares a border with a foreign nation, a state with a long history of disputes between Europeans and an indigenous population and between Anglo-Europeans and people of Spanish origin, a state that had existed as an independent nation, that had plantation-based slavery and legalized Jim Crow. (p. 27)
As she once sought to clear away the layers of accumulated myth that had gathered around the life of Thomas Jefferson, so Gordon-Reed wants in this book to draw the reader’s attention to uncomfortable truths about Texas’s history.
In spite of how much many Americans in Texas and throughout the Union might want to focus on the Alamo as a tragic tableau at the heart of a fight for liberty, Gordon-Reed writes that “There is no way to get around the fact that, whatever legitimate federalism-based issues were at play, slavery was a central reason Anglo-Texans wanted out of Mexico” (p. 25). She adds further that for Texas’s original white settlers, “The choice for slavery was deliberate, and that reality is hard to square with a desire to present a pristine and heroic origin story about the settlement of Texas. There is no way to do that without suggesting that the lives of African Americans, and their descendants in Texas, did not, and do not, matter” (p. 27).
Gordon-Reed’s purpose in questioning these traditional myths of Texas history is creative, not destructive: “As painful as it may be, recognizing – though not dwelling on – tragedy and the role it plays in our individual lives, and in the life of a state or nation, is, I think, a sign of maturity” (p. 29).
Later in On Juneteenth, Gordon-Reed evokes William Faulkner’s famous statement, in his 1951 novel Requiem for a Nun, that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past”, and then challenges Faulkner’s statement in terms of her own family’s history in Texas: “I believe the Nobel laureate was wrong about that. The past is dead. But, like other formerly living things, echoes of the past remain, leaving their traces in the people and events of the present and future” (p. 32). As always in her work, the focus is on what history can teach us, if we set out to understand the whole story.
Toward that end, Gordon-Reed tells the story of her experiences as the first African American student at formerly all-white Anderson Elementary School in Conroe. Her great-great-aunt from Houston “bought boxes and boxes of dresses, tights, blouses, skirts, and hats from the most upscale department store in the city at the time, Sakowitz”. Gordon-Reed speculates on what her great-great-aunt must have experienced in the “racially repressive and violent society Texas was at the end of the nineteenth century”, and reflects that “Making sure I was dressed to the nines was her contribution to the civil rights movement” (p. 39).
Gordon-Reed also offers thoughtful reflections on the hostility that she felt from some whites, such as a Conroe store owner: “Empowered Black people made the intangible benefits derived from Whiteness less valuable”; for a long time, after all, an unjust social structure had invited any white man to feel as if he was automatically “superior” to any black man. Gordon-Reed adds in that regard that “Patriarchy, which is not only about the subjugation of women but about competition between males, is so central to this story” (p. 45).
Memories of childhood trips to the Six Flags Over Texas amusement park in the Dallas/Fort Worth suburb of Arlington bring up the difficulties and contradictions of Texan – and, by implication, American – identity. Gordon-Reed’s recollection of one particular field trip, when a classmate fell into a pool of water and was rescued by a park employee dressed as a Native American, becomes an occasion for meditating on how, “even at the young age, I had gotten the message that Indians were part of the past….Whatever quaint depiction of Texas this young man was dressed to be a part of, it reinforced the idea of current absence” (p. 78).
That sense of absence was reinforced, for Gordon-Reed, by a childhood viewing of the John Wayne film The Alamo (1960), on the film’s 1967 re-release. While a friend wept over the scene where all of the Texans defending the Alamo willingly step over a line drawn in the sand by Colonel Travis as an indicator of their willingness to die in the Alamo’s defense, Gordon-Reed “recalled being slightly embarrassed by the character who was Jim Bowie’s slave”, for reasons that she subsequently sets forth in greater detail:
I knew by then to flinch, or slightly hold my breath even, whenever Black actors appeared in movies, especially old films. I never knew what was going to happen, but I knew what could happen. Would the Black character be good for Black people, or bad for Black people? I had a strong sense that such things could never just be about that one actor’s characterization. There were so few representations of Blacks in films in those days that every appearance counted. (p. 102)
Toward the end of On Juneteenth, Gordon-Reed returns to General Granger’s Juneteenth proclamation at Galveston in 1865, writing about how African Americans responded: “The idea that the society that oppressed them might be transformed into one based upon equality influenced Black Texans in much the same way that the Declaration of Independence influenced Blacks in the early American Republic” (p. 127). That sense of potential in the midst of trouble is characteristic of this thoughtful and thought-provoking book.
Gordon-Reed, a professor of history at Rutgers University, has been one of the most celebrated scholars of Southern U.S. culture since at least 1997, when her book Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy was published. One year before the publication of the scientific study that indicated that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings had children together, Gordon-Reed offered a brilliant exposé of the limitations in the thinking of those who might try to claim that it was somehow “impossible” for Jefferson to have had an intimate relationship with an enslaved woman. Her subsequent work, such as The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (2008), shows how much more the discipline of history can teach us when historians set out to tell the whole story, inclusively rather than selectively.
Gordon-Reed grew up in Conroe, Texas, during segregation times, and therefore she is particularly well-suited to discuss the intricacies and contradictions of life in the state where the first Juneteenth took place. She points out that
No other state brings together so many disparate and defining characteristics all in one – a state that shares a border with a foreign nation, a state with a long history of disputes between Europeans and an indigenous population and between Anglo-Europeans and people of Spanish origin, a state that had existed as an independent nation, that had plantation-based slavery and legalized Jim Crow. (p. 27)
As she once sought to clear away the layers of accumulated myth that had gathered around the life of Thomas Jefferson, so Gordon-Reed wants in this book to draw the reader’s attention to uncomfortable truths about Texas’s history.
In spite of how much many Americans in Texas and throughout the Union might want to focus on the Alamo as a tragic tableau at the heart of a fight for liberty, Gordon-Reed writes that “There is no way to get around the fact that, whatever legitimate federalism-based issues were at play, slavery was a central reason Anglo-Texans wanted out of Mexico” (p. 25). She adds further that for Texas’s original white settlers, “The choice for slavery was deliberate, and that reality is hard to square with a desire to present a pristine and heroic origin story about the settlement of Texas. There is no way to do that without suggesting that the lives of African Americans, and their descendants in Texas, did not, and do not, matter” (p. 27).
Gordon-Reed’s purpose in questioning these traditional myths of Texas history is creative, not destructive: “As painful as it may be, recognizing – though not dwelling on – tragedy and the role it plays in our individual lives, and in the life of a state or nation, is, I think, a sign of maturity” (p. 29).
Later in On Juneteenth, Gordon-Reed evokes William Faulkner’s famous statement, in his 1951 novel Requiem for a Nun, that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past”, and then challenges Faulkner’s statement in terms of her own family’s history in Texas: “I believe the Nobel laureate was wrong about that. The past is dead. But, like other formerly living things, echoes of the past remain, leaving their traces in the people and events of the present and future” (p. 32). As always in her work, the focus is on what history can teach us, if we set out to understand the whole story.
Toward that end, Gordon-Reed tells the story of her experiences as the first African American student at formerly all-white Anderson Elementary School in Conroe. Her great-great-aunt from Houston “bought boxes and boxes of dresses, tights, blouses, skirts, and hats from the most upscale department store in the city at the time, Sakowitz”. Gordon-Reed speculates on what her great-great-aunt must have experienced in the “racially repressive and violent society Texas was at the end of the nineteenth century”, and reflects that “Making sure I was dressed to the nines was her contribution to the civil rights movement” (p. 39).
Gordon-Reed also offers thoughtful reflections on the hostility that she felt from some whites, such as a Conroe store owner: “Empowered Black people made the intangible benefits derived from Whiteness less valuable”; for a long time, after all, an unjust social structure had invited any white man to feel as if he was automatically “superior” to any black man. Gordon-Reed adds in that regard that “Patriarchy, which is not only about the subjugation of women but about competition between males, is so central to this story” (p. 45).
Memories of childhood trips to the Six Flags Over Texas amusement park in the Dallas/Fort Worth suburb of Arlington bring up the difficulties and contradictions of Texan – and, by implication, American – identity. Gordon-Reed’s recollection of one particular field trip, when a classmate fell into a pool of water and was rescued by a park employee dressed as a Native American, becomes an occasion for meditating on how, “even at the young age, I had gotten the message that Indians were part of the past….Whatever quaint depiction of Texas this young man was dressed to be a part of, it reinforced the idea of current absence” (p. 78).
That sense of absence was reinforced, for Gordon-Reed, by a childhood viewing of the John Wayne film The Alamo (1960), on the film’s 1967 re-release. While a friend wept over the scene where all of the Texans defending the Alamo willingly step over a line drawn in the sand by Colonel Travis as an indicator of their willingness to die in the Alamo’s defense, Gordon-Reed “recalled being slightly embarrassed by the character who was Jim Bowie’s slave”, for reasons that she subsequently sets forth in greater detail:
I knew by then to flinch, or slightly hold my breath even, whenever Black actors appeared in movies, especially old films. I never knew what was going to happen, but I knew what could happen. Would the Black character be good for Black people, or bad for Black people? I had a strong sense that such things could never just be about that one actor’s characterization. There were so few representations of Blacks in films in those days that every appearance counted. (p. 102)
Toward the end of On Juneteenth, Gordon-Reed returns to General Granger’s Juneteenth proclamation at Galveston in 1865, writing about how African Americans responded: “The idea that the society that oppressed them might be transformed into one based upon equality influenced Black Texans in much the same way that the Declaration of Independence influenced Blacks in the early American Republic” (p. 127). That sense of potential in the midst of trouble is characteristic of this thoughtful and thought-provoking book.
August 16, 2021
On June 16, 1865, two years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, a Union General arrived in Galveston to proclaim the end of slavery and the Confederacy's defeat. Texans and others have celebrated June 19 or Juneteenth as marking the end of slavery. In 2021 Juneteenth was declared a national holiday.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon Reed's book, On Juneteenth, places the holiday in a historical context. The book consists of a series of essays that are part historical and part memoir and deals with issues of history and identity. Born at the end of the Jim Crow era, Reed was one of the first African Americans to integrate the schools in Conroe, Texas, which lies 50 miles north of Houston. In her essays, the Harvard historian provides a history of Texas that debunks many myths she learned in school. (The chapter on the Alamo is provocative and insightful!) She also documents the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow through to the present.
Throughout the text, Reed grapples with her identity as a Texan. Despite the horrific treatment of African- Americans, she loves Texas as it is the place she feels most at home. She states:
"Abstract notions of the United States, of Virginia--- of Texas--- for me at least, don't capture why places are worthy of love. When asked to explain what I love about Texas, given all that I know has happened there--- and is still happening there--- the best response I can give is that this is where my first family and connections were. It is where I lived with my mother, father, and brothers. It's where I rode back and forth to visit my grandparents, aunts, and cousins. In other words, Texas is where my mother's boundless dreams for me took place. It is also where I learned to think people could, and should try, in whatever way they can to make life better for others alive today and those to come.
About the difficulties of Texas, love does not require taking an uncritical stance toward the object of one's affection. We can't be of real service to the hopes we have for places and people, ourselves included, without a clear-eyed assessment of their (and our) strengths and weaknesses."
In this spirit, she provides a more critical and balanced history of her home state and the origins of this new national holiday that we all should celebrate. On Juneteenth is a short, heartfelt, and finely written text. I highly recommend it.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon Reed's book, On Juneteenth, places the holiday in a historical context. The book consists of a series of essays that are part historical and part memoir and deals with issues of history and identity. Born at the end of the Jim Crow era, Reed was one of the first African Americans to integrate the schools in Conroe, Texas, which lies 50 miles north of Houston. In her essays, the Harvard historian provides a history of Texas that debunks many myths she learned in school. (The chapter on the Alamo is provocative and insightful!) She also documents the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow through to the present.
Throughout the text, Reed grapples with her identity as a Texan. Despite the horrific treatment of African- Americans, she loves Texas as it is the place she feels most at home. She states:
"Abstract notions of the United States, of Virginia--- of Texas--- for me at least, don't capture why places are worthy of love. When asked to explain what I love about Texas, given all that I know has happened there--- and is still happening there--- the best response I can give is that this is where my first family and connections were. It is where I lived with my mother, father, and brothers. It's where I rode back and forth to visit my grandparents, aunts, and cousins. In other words, Texas is where my mother's boundless dreams for me took place. It is also where I learned to think people could, and should try, in whatever way they can to make life better for others alive today and those to come.
About the difficulties of Texas, love does not require taking an uncritical stance toward the object of one's affection. We can't be of real service to the hopes we have for places and people, ourselves included, without a clear-eyed assessment of their (and our) strengths and weaknesses."
In this spirit, she provides a more critical and balanced history of her home state and the origins of this new national holiday that we all should celebrate. On Juneteenth is a short, heartfelt, and finely written text. I highly recommend it.
May 23, 2021
I was a little disappointed by the fact very little in the book is actually about Juneteenth and its history. Still a good book about Texas, the author and her family.
July 1, 2021
I love works of non-fiction that seamlessly blend personal experiences and historical perspectives. Gordon-Reed does so in On Juneteenth, a compact collection of essays that takes a look at her experiences growing up in Texas and framing that in larger conversations about the history of Texas and its treatment of Black and Native peoples leading up to Juneteenth. Once we get to Juneteenth, this does just kind of peter out, but the overall effect is there and I learned a lot.
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June 17, 2021
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November 18, 2023
This collection of six essays, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Harvard Law professor Gordon-Reed, explores the history of her native Texas through the lens of race and the experiences of her own family. She provides some of the rest of the story left out in Texas and American history classes, including that one of the major reasons Texans revolted against Mexico in 1835-1836 was to defend slavery, which it enshrined in the new Constitution of the Texas Republic. The final essay is devoted to the origins of Juneteenth, which celebrates General Gordon Granger's issue of General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, notifying the people of the state that all slaves were free and were to enjoy "absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property."
August 21, 2021
A very poignant and moving expose on Texas and its racial history. The book is a personal story capped with a profound and important "coda" by the author. A quick but meaningful small book with a huge message.
June 19, 2021
Look I loved this.
I like this historian quite a bit.
Her research on the Hemings family is groundbreaking.
This was short but packed with good info.
Read this, you won't regret it.
I like this historian quite a bit.
Her research on the Hemings family is groundbreaking.
This was short but packed with good info.
Read this, you won't regret it.
March 29, 2022
I randomly saw this on offer when browsing through Libby, and so, as one does, I borrowed it, instead of reading one of the 92.6 billion other books I own or have already borrowed.
I didn't know anything about what this would be about, except for Juneteenth perhaps. My skill in deductive reasoning allowed me to figure that much out, but it turned out to be much more about the history of Texas and how race issues (namely the rights of people of one to own people of another) literally CREATED Texas, and how those issues have metamorphized over the years, but have never really gone away, despite being swept under a whole stack of rugs. It's also about the identity of black Texans, and Gordon-Reed's own introspection on the nature of her love and pride, and thoughts on why she is able to have those feelings for a place so purposefully created to be exploitive and racist. But that's the interesting thing about humans... we are complex and multi-faceted. We can love something while still wishing for it to be better, and part of that love is actually acknowledging the flaws. With the current CRT "debate", this book was super timely and excellently written. Acknowledging racist history is valid and needed and I'm all for it.
I didn't know anything about what this would be about, except for Juneteenth perhaps. My skill in deductive reasoning allowed me to figure that much out, but it turned out to be much more about the history of Texas and how race issues (namely the rights of people of one to own people of another) literally CREATED Texas, and how those issues have metamorphized over the years, but have never really gone away, despite being swept under a whole stack of rugs. It's also about the identity of black Texans, and Gordon-Reed's own introspection on the nature of her love and pride, and thoughts on why she is able to have those feelings for a place so purposefully created to be exploitive and racist. But that's the interesting thing about humans... we are complex and multi-faceted. We can love something while still wishing for it to be better, and part of that love is actually acknowledging the flaws. With the current CRT "debate", this book was super timely and excellently written. Acknowledging racist history is valid and needed and I'm all for it.
July 2, 2021
Really interesting collection of essays that mix Texan history with stories of how she and her family grappled with and were affected by the history growing up. It really engages with the question of how you can love a place (and it is clear she loves Texas) while also acknowledging and understanding how it can be less than perfect and even be built on some pretty questionable or even evil acts. There's a lot in here, especially about the motivations of the people who created the republic of Texas, that I didn't know. My only complaint as that it was too short.
**Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
**Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
March 22, 2022
In this brilliant, information packed and brief series of essays Gordon-Reed (the person most responsible for making white America acknowledge Sally Hemmings, her children with Thomas Jefferson, and what that says or doesn't say about our nation's foundation) once again takes on the space between historical "facts" and true lived experience. By that I don't just mean that she busts historical myth and hagiography regarding iconic people and events like Jefferson, or Thanksgiving, or the Alamo. She does that. But she also makes the reader consider why the myths exist, why we (or at least some of us) need(ed) them. Then she goes one step further and shares her opinion based on her lived experience on what good things are gained and lost when we dismiss the myth and try to repair the brokenness that lies beneath.
To that end Gordon-Reed blends historical data with her personal experience of being a black girl growing up in Texas who went on to be a black woman at elite academic institutions. Gordon-Reed attended some of the best schools in the world and has taught at many others. She is now a history prof at Harvard University and also teaches at Harvard Law School. In addition to other prizes won she received the Pulitzer in History and the National Book Award in Nonfiction. She shares not only her own experiences, but also those of her mother, a Spelman educated black woman teaching in Texas schools before and after integration, and those of her elderly aunt, a black woman who saw a white man acquitted of murder after he lynched a black man in a courtroom in front of the same judge who presided at his "trial."
Gordon-Reed takes this signal event, Juneteenth, which is really at its root a Texas holiday, and adds in a bit of the history of black people in Texas, and uses these things as a jumping off point to look at the strides made since the "end" of slavery, and the more numerous ways in which the promise of "equality" has not been fulfilled. The book is fascinating, not a dry moment. It is also edifying and clear-eyed without being hopeless - optimistic in a factually supportable way, if you will. If there is anything I have learned in the last 6 years it is that politics and history are personal, and the stories in this book are proof of that. I rarely say everyone should read this, but everyone should read this.
To that end Gordon-Reed blends historical data with her personal experience of being a black girl growing up in Texas who went on to be a black woman at elite academic institutions. Gordon-Reed attended some of the best schools in the world and has taught at many others. She is now a history prof at Harvard University and also teaches at Harvard Law School. In addition to other prizes won she received the Pulitzer in History and the National Book Award in Nonfiction. She shares not only her own experiences, but also those of her mother, a Spelman educated black woman teaching in Texas schools before and after integration, and those of her elderly aunt, a black woman who saw a white man acquitted of murder after he lynched a black man in a courtroom in front of the same judge who presided at his "trial."
Gordon-Reed takes this signal event, Juneteenth, which is really at its root a Texas holiday, and adds in a bit of the history of black people in Texas, and uses these things as a jumping off point to look at the strides made since the "end" of slavery, and the more numerous ways in which the promise of "equality" has not been fulfilled. The book is fascinating, not a dry moment. It is also edifying and clear-eyed without being hopeless - optimistic in a factually supportable way, if you will. If there is anything I have learned in the last 6 years it is that politics and history are personal, and the stories in this book are proof of that. I rarely say everyone should read this, but everyone should read this.
August 12, 2021
In this quick read, the author offers a series of short essays on Juneteenth from the perspective of an African American growing up in east Texas. In each essay, we learn about the history of Texas, including the likely first African to step on the soil of what would later be the United States (no . . . it wasn't in Jamestown in 1619). I appreciated her own personal history which she places in the context of the history of the state, and I learned a lot about Texas history which I would otherwise not have. I can see why she starts out bemused that Juneteenth has become a national celebration in light of the fact that it really is unique to Texas.
June 24, 2021
Great breakdown of Juneteenth origins as well as the importance of that date to Texans, African Americans, and others. This is pretty short I thought and would be something you can give to a younger person and even an adult that they could read at their own leisure without them getting bored.
November 3, 2023
An exceptional essay collection about race, with heavy emphasis on Texas, Gordon's birthplace. Throughout, Gordon reminds us how certain bits of history were never taught in schools. How people envision the state of Texas, leaving so much of out. I like to learn while I read, this small book was filled with that experience.
I started thinking of this as Gordon's love letter to her home and family, and yet I can't call it that. Perhaps, unlove letter would be a better word, as the normal history lesson covers none of what Gordon talked about. Then I realized a book like this could be written on every State in the Union. So many books I have read in my reading voyage have alerted me to unknown contributions of the people of color throughout the building of America.
A short, as I said, exceptional book. Highly Recommended.
I started thinking of this as Gordon's love letter to her home and family, and yet I can't call it that. Perhaps, unlove letter would be a better word, as the normal history lesson covers none of what Gordon talked about. Then I realized a book like this could be written on every State in the Union. So many books I have read in my reading voyage have alerted me to unknown contributions of the people of color throughout the building of America.
A short, as I said, exceptional book. Highly Recommended.
July 22, 2021
Short and to the point. I think a better title would have been “ My Texas.” A nice blending of history and memoir about growing up as an African American in Texas. Make no mistake though this is a book about Texas and its hubris, uniqueness, and real history.
June 5, 2021
As someone who only just found out about Juneteenth last year, this book was very informative not only when it comes to facts but also the living and recounted experiences of the author, her family, and community. Highly recommend everyone to pick it up!
a huge thank you to Libro FM, Annette Gordon-Reed, and Recorded Books for an ALC of this book
a huge thank you to Libro FM, Annette Gordon-Reed, and Recorded Books for an ALC of this book
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December 20, 2021I really enjoy this style of mixing memoir and history. I thought it was done very well in this book
June 28, 2024
The title implies it is a book about the origins of Juneteenth, but it is much more. It combines the author’s memoir, history of Texas, and commentary on the roots of racism. Annette Gordon-Reed grew up in Texas and was the first Black child to attend her elementary school. She was taught Texas history in fourth and seventh grade, but these classes contained a cleansed version. In this book she clarifies the myths surrounding Texas history and traces the roots of so much of the racism we see today back to slavery. She examines the societal changes that have occurred since that time and the ways that the ideal of equality remains unfulfilled. I found it a fascinating read that provides a perspective I appreciated. It is both riveting and eye-opening. Highly recommended.
July 27, 2023
I have a great deal of respect for Annette Gordon-Reed's books. She is a well thought of historian and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. This book was slightly different to what I had expected. It was primarily about Texas, and although I found her personal history interesting, I just cannot bring myself to care about Texas. For those interested in the topic, they will probably like it better.
July 7, 2022
Short, informative discussion about the Juneteenth holiday.
June 23, 2021
Find the full review over at TOMES AND TEXTILES.
On Juneteenth is a clear-eyed look at Texas history with a focus on Juneteenth. This history is glossed over and glorified in the history books and films, in legend, songs, even theme parks (that Six Flags tidbit was a SURPRISE to me, someone who has never been to one). While I read it earlier this week, I was struck by the fact that this book probably couldn’t be taught in many schools because even the discussion of racism in education has come under fire recently.
🎧
If you are looking for a short and insightful nonfiction read, I urge you to pick it up.
Find more book photos over at TOMES AND TEXTILES.
On Juneteenth is a clear-eyed look at Texas history with a focus on Juneteenth. This history is glossed over and glorified in the history books and films, in legend, songs, even theme parks (that Six Flags tidbit was a SURPRISE to me, someone who has never been to one). While I read it earlier this week, I was struck by the fact that this book probably couldn’t be taught in many schools because even the discussion of racism in education has come under fire recently.
🎧
If you are looking for a short and insightful nonfiction read, I urge you to pick it up.
Find more book photos over at TOMES AND TEXTILES.
August 17, 2021
This was great. For being such a short book, it provided so much information, knowledge, perspective, and insight. It discussed the historical intersection of Texas, Black people, and Juneteenth.
This was my first book from Gordon-Reed and I now want her to write all my non-fiction. This was just what I like; it provided new (to me) information and expounded on old information with a new perspective. This is a reference to be re-read and reviewed many times. My only complaint is that it wasn't longer.
Highly recommend.
This was my first book from Gordon-Reed and I now want her to write all my non-fiction. This was just what I like; it provided new (to me) information and expounded on old information with a new perspective. This is a reference to be re-read and reviewed many times. My only complaint is that it wasn't longer.
Highly recommend.
May 26, 2021
A wonderful, compelling, and deeply intelligent mixture of history, essay, and memoir. Gordon-Reed uses her own life experiences and those of her family as a lens to examine Texas history and the origins and legacy of the Juneteenth holiday. Highly recommended.
July 19, 2023
This month's selection for the Austin Center For Inquiry non-fiction book club. When I first saw this pick I wasn't sure I would be interested since it looked like a mix of personal narrative and history, but I was wrong. Gordon-Reed is a fantastic writer with clear and insightful prose, Her personal story was fascinating, and the history was illuminating. I wonder if she's familiar with the book Forget The Alamo which our group read a couple years back. I loved her comments about how so many people try to disparage any history they don't like as "revisionist" without understanding the what that actually means. Wonderful book that needs to be widely read.
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