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""It is staggering that there is no date commemorating the end of slavery in the United States." -Annette Gordon-Reed. The essential, sweeping story of Juneteenth's integral importance to American history, as told by a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Texas native. Interweaving American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed, the descendant of enslaved people brought to Texas in the 1850s, recounts the origins of Juneteenth and explores the legacies of the holiday that remain with us. From the earliest presence of black people in Texas-in the 1500s, well before enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown-to the day in Galveston on June 19, 1865, when General Gordon Granger announced the end of slavery, Gordon-Reed's insightful and inspiring essays present the saga of a "frontier" peopled by Native Americans, Anglos, Tejanos, and Blacks that became a slaveholder's republic. Reworking the "Alamo" framework, Gordon-Reed shows that the slave-and race-based economy not only defined this fractious era of Texas independence, but precipitated the Mexican-American War and the resulting Civil War. A commemoration of Juneteenth and the fraught legacies of slavery that still persist, On Juneteenth is stark reminder that the fight for equality is ongoing"--… (more)
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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.
By title alone, I thought I was in for a very different book specifically about the history of Juneteenth and its
The overwhelming majority of white Texans had, from their first settlement in what was then Mexico, envisioned a place where the economy was based on the unpaid labor of enslaved Americans of African descent. And they did whatever they could to disobey the order. To this day Americans are living with the results of this refusal to live up the words of the Declaration of Independence that proclaimed equality.
Three recent works of nonfiction focus on America’s history of slavery and evolving narratives regarding acknowledgement of enslaved people.
William Still: The Underground Railroad and the Angel at Philadelphia
William C. Kashatus; April 2021; University of
Themes: history, social science, biography, African American & Black Studies
Set within the context of the broader anti-slavery movement, William C. Kashatus tells the compelling story of William Still, a key leader of the Underground Railroad and early civil rights advocate. Of particular note is the detailed database of the 995 runaway slaves who William Still helped escape between 1853 and 1861 which provides priceless information about each individual.
On Juneteenth
Annette Gordon-Reed; May 2021; Liveright/W. W. Norton
Themes: history, social science, memoir, African American & Black Studies
Blending both heart-wrenching and uplifting personal anecdotes about growing up Black in Texas with key historical events and stories, Annette Gordon-Reed takes readers on a journey through history with connections for today.
How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
Clint Smith; June 2021; Little, Brown and Company/Hachette Book Group
Themes: history, social science, memoir, African American & Black Studies
A travelogue, a memoir, a history, and a powerful reckoning… Clint Smith shares his experiences visiting sites connected with the history of enslaved people from Africa to the United States.
Let’s explore seven timely take-aways for life-long learners:
1. Free black abolitionist William Still coordinated activities of the Eastern Line of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia. The detailed records kept by Still in the mid-nineteenth century about escaped slaves provide a priceless tool for researchers exploring the African American enslavement experience.
2. Those involved with the anti-slavery and later civil rights movements often disagreed about the best approach to address abolition, the plight of enslaved peoples, and the aftermath of slavery.
3. Juneteenth refers to June 19, 1865. On this date, the news arrived in Galveston Texas proclaiming the end of slavery and defeat of the Confederacy (General Order No. 3).
4. Although long celebrated by Black Texans, Juneteenth has recently become part of the national conversation and ongoing battle to acknowledge the racism and battle for civil rights in America.
5. The nationalist-oriented, conventional narrative of American history comes from a white, English-speaking perspective closing off varied influences and viewpoints.
6. Many historical sites are working toward a more truthful approach to the discussion of enslaved people.
7. While some historical sites are striving to fill the gaps with a more accurate picture of their connection to slavery, others are finding the process of reconciliation a challenge.
Gordon-Reed's book was used as a basis for discussion of Juneteenth on June 17, 2021 in a Zoom class. It coincided with Illinois making June 19 a state holiday and with President Biden signing the bill making it a national holiday. The book
For me, the crux of the book is this:
I often encounter great hesitancy about, and impatience with, discussing race when talking about the American past. The
I’ve lived most of my life in Rhode Island, and I don’t recall the Triangle Trade being mentioned in grade-school history. Its significance was only brought home to me recently when I watched Katrina Browne’s 2008 documentary Traces of the trade : a Story from the Deep North. Browne and members of her extended family tried to come to grips with the fact that they are descended from the largest slave-trading dynasty in U.S. history, the DeWolf family, who have had a lasting impact on economic and social life in Rhode Island from their heyday in the early nineteenth century to today.
Interviewees in the film said that truth and reconciliation commissions such as those instituted by Nelson Mandela in South Africa, and reparations, are needed in the U.S.
Cleared-eyed history is also needed. Thank you, Annette Gordon-Reed.
The book contains less information on Juneteenth than the title implies, but it does reward the short time it takes to read it.