On Juneteenth is a powerful blend of memoir and historiography, beautifully written by Annette Gordon-Read. I will be revisiting this text, as—despite the brevity of this book’s length—Gordon-Reed weaves truths and insights about our nation that are often overlooked in “mainstream narratives” of the USA.

Annette Gordon-Reed is a beloved historian who constructs thoughful arguments after extensive research--and writes beautifully and meaningfully. This particular book, ON JUNETEENTH, is far shorter and more personal than most of her previous work. Here, Gordon-Reed considers how slavery took root in Texas and how it finally ended, then shares how her childhood in Texas marked (and was marked) by that history. A wonderful read, terrifically timed given the new national recognition of Juneteenth.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?
The words of Frederick Douglass are words I could not get out of my mind while reading Annette Gordon-Reed’s new book, On Juneteenth. I can imagine those words, or the sentiment behind that Douglass speech, may have been on the minds of those who first celebrated Juneteenth, a commemoration of the enslaved people of Texas finally being granted the freedom they already naturally (and even legally) were owed.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annette Gordon-Reed (The Hemingses of Monticello) is one of the great historians of our time, and she has created a terrific new work with On Juneteenth. The book is not chiefly focused on Juneteenth as a holiday (although she does tell about how her family has always celebrated it, which was wonderful) or on the events leading up to what happened in Galveston on June 19, 1865. More than anything, it is a reexamination of Texas’ history and culture through the lens of a Black woman who grew up in Texas.
Gordon-Reed is clear from the beginning on what she hopes to achieve. She writes:
Of great importance, as I have said in another context, the image of Texas has a gender and a race: “Texas is a White man.” What that means for everyone who lives in Texas and is not a White man is part of what I hope to explore in the essays of this book.
This quote is the center of what Gordon-Reed explores, but it does not adequately convey the skill and care with which she does so. In the hands of a less gifted historian, or one with an agenda, On Juneteenth could have become an overreach and wielded historical sources to score political points. Gordon-Reed does not seem interested in such endeavors (both here and in The Hemingses of Monticello), which makes On Juneteenth both more beautiful and more powerful.
For example, Gordon-Reed examines the role of preserving slavery in the motivations for Texas independence (something not taught in her childhood Texas history class or in the one I taught just over 5 years ago). She makes a very strong argument that preserving slavery was a major motivation for Stephen F. Austin and many Texans in going to war with Mexico, which completely changes the narrative of many Texas history courses and is a huge step into the reexamination Gordon-Reed is attempting to accomplish. However, she is careful not to oversimplify the motivations of Texas independence by the implication that it was only the preservation of slavery that played a part. She explains:
History is, to say the least, complicated. There are almost always mixed motives within and among individuals about any of the great issues of the day. Given that two different ethnic groups, with two different languages, were involved in Mexican Texas, it’s not surprising that cultural tensions might develop that could lead to a rift, even though the Mexican government had initially welcomed Anglo immigration. And the Texians were justifiably alarmed by President Santa Anna’s suspension of the constitution as a move to consolidate power in the central government. But contention over slavery had been present from the moment Stephen Austin, and his father before him, had dreamed of bringing White colonists to a new version of a promised land. Many of the people who heeded Austin’s call came with clenched teeth and balled-up fists, so to speak. They arrived with both insecurity and defiance, knowing that a significant number of people, within Texas and without, viewed their way of life — enslaving people — with abhorrence.
That’s the beauty of Gordon-Reed’s reclamation of Texas history — it’s fair, and it’s clearly backed up by the historical record. But it doesn’t stop with the motivations behind the war. She examines the racist and sexist motivations behind a common story about General Santa Anna being caught off guard because he was with a “mulatto girl” in his tent. She relays the story of lynchings and even the story of a Black man who was shot dead in a Texas courtroom. His killer turned himself in and wasn’t convicted. He did it because he knew he could.

The Juneteenth flag
Some throw up their hands at these sorts of reexaminations, dismissing it as “revisionist history” as they did Gordon-Reed’s discoveries about Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. But that comes from the mistaken idea that history is set in stone. We accept that science changes over time. We should accept the same of history as we learn more about the past. As an example, Gordon-Reed’s revelations about the Jefferson-Hemings bloodlines would not have been possible without the availability of modern genetic testing. Gordon-Reed writes:
History is always being revised, as new information comes to light and when different people see known documents and have their own responses to them, shaped by their individual experiences.
“But individual experiences shouldn’t make a difference”, you might think. But someone’s interpretation of a document might be different and correct. It’s possible that historians of the same cultural background, in the same time period, brought their shared biases into their interpretations. Those shared biases are more widespread than we often care to imagine.
So please, revise the history. Rethink everything. Because without trying to shed our preconceptions, we are vulnerable to repeat the mistakes of the past. Gordon-Reed writes near the end of the book that reexamining history in such a way never made her feel less of a Texan:
I don’t feel hostage to others’ conceptions of what Texas should mean to me, or accept that Texas “belongs” exclusively to any group of people who lived, or live, there. Being a Black person and a Texan, then, are not in opposition.
…
About the difficulties of Texas: Love does not require taking an uncritical stance toward the object of one’s affections. In truth, it often requires the opposite. 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.
So if you want to rethink some history, whether you’re familiar with Texas history or not, I highly recommend Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth. It’s one of my favorite books of the year so far, and it would be a great decision to commemorate the lives of those who have deserved so much better.
I received a review copy On Juneteenth courtesy of Liveright and NetGalley, but my opinions are my own.

“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.

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.

Review:
This book reminded me of why Annette Gordon-Reed is one of my favorite Historians. She brings herself into the narrative only when it serves the context of the work and does so in a way that is so authentic and comforting. Juneteenth is more than a freedom holiday to her and many other Black Texans. It's about celebrating legacy and family as well as acknowledging that time has not healed all wounds.

Within this short book, Gordon-Reed takes the reader through a short history of Texas and Galveston, how Africans came to be in Texas and contemplates the way this History is remembered or not. She explains the ways in which she and her family are connected to the history of Black folks in Texas as Gordon-Reed desegregated her local school. All of this culminating into the circumstances of Juneteenth and how it is celebrated today in Texas.

This work feels personal and I'm grateful for it.

Verdict:
I highly recommend this book to everyone from high school and up. On Juneteenth could also work for middle and elementary schools if the educator takes sections for reviewing with students.

Annette Gordon-Reed has done it again. On Juneteenth is a thoughtful, beautiful piece that seamlessly weaves together memoir and history. Gordon-Reed is one of my favorite historians, and I wasn't disappointed at all by this read. The previous works I've read by her (her Sally Hemings books) focus on another person or someone else's family, and so seeing more of a personal approach in this book was lovely and helped show what Gordon-Reed went through to make her the historian she is today. This book is a must read, particularly for public historians and even more so for those who work/interpret painful narratives.

An interesting mix of history, biography, and geography. I like how Gordon-Reed weaves her family history and her love of Texas into a pretty clear summary and critique of what went on over the last few hundred years. Its a quick read, but a good intro to her writing style.


I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review, but all opinions are my own.

An important look at how one day in history can make a difference to generations down the line. Reed’s recollection of her past and reflections on how Juneteenth is widely celebrated on a national stage today shows the high value of freedom and family still present in local history.

eARC NetGalley review

On Juneteenth is a short collection of powerful essays on the history of Texas and what it means to be Black in America. Gordon-Reed recounts her own experiences being a young Black girl in Texas through out these chapters and how when looking back at her childhood history classes, some information was romanticized or left out of the classrooms completely.

This book is overflowing with information in an easy-to-read prose. Although I'm far from an expert, I now feel more comfortable speaking about Texas' history, segregation/integration, and early explorers like Cabeza de Vaca and Estebanico.

I recommend this book to everyone. Unless you're a scholar of early American and Texan history, this book is a must read.

Thank you to the author, W. W. Norton & Company, and NetGalley for a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

newest – slightly more personal book – by Harvard law professor Annette Gordon-Reed, whose scholarship on Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson revolutionized early American historiography. Gordon-Reed was born and raised in Texas, where her family descended from enslaved persons, celebrated Juneteenth annually, and endured the Jim Crow segregated South. As a recent New York Times book review recounts, Gordon-Reed herself helped to integrate schools racially in her hometown. This new book integrates the author’s intersectional perspective with a long history of marking the abolishment of enslavement in the Lone Star State

This was not the book I was expecting but it is still a very good read about race and the legacy of history, with a lot of personal perspectives from the author that help invoke reflection by the reader.. or at least me. This is a book I think everyone can learn something from which is reason enough to pick it up. While I was hoping to learn more about the history leading up to and the evolution of Juneteenth it is so much more than that.. Gordon-Reed takes the celebration of Juneteenth and builds upon the topic to open the reader's eyes to so many different layers of Texas's history beyond what western movies portray. I would have liked a little more of the true history of Juneteenth to be woven in (the last chapter of five is truly the only part that goes into this in my opinion, it is absolutely worth the read.

Thank you to NetGalley, Liveright Press, and Annette Gordon-Reed for an advanced copy of the book in return for an honest review.

I feel like it can be kind of hard to wrap one’s head around a central theme in Juneteenth which is really a collection of essays that blend personal reflection and history to illustrate why the celebration of this day is particularly important in Texas. Regrettably, I think some of the message gets blurred as we are veering from personal experience and reflection to history which can disorient the reader in such a short volume.

That being said, there were things I liked such as the segments on Texas history and the divisions that existed between races that one would assume on paper at least would be allies pushing for better treatment. And I feel like personal history and experience can always be helpful in the complicated area of race. But this does not change the fact that I kept looking for some sort of theme that would tie everything together and it never came.

An interesting book in parts if confusing in the sum.

This is a historian's collection of history and family antidotes about the origins of the true history that formed the celebration Juneteenth. Raised in Texas with stories of cowboys and oilman, the author searched and found the foundation of her ancestors history from slavery to Jim Crow til today, which is a profound part of American history. I couldn't have enjoyed learning about this topic more.

Annette Gordon-Reed is a preeminent historian who made her mark on American culture by untangling the knots that kept enslaved people hidden from the history books. She is best known for her unveiling of the life of Sally Hemings and her insights into the life of Thomas Jefferson.

I don't usually start a review with an author's bona fides, but I cite these because I read On Juneteenth because I have already read two of Gordon-Reed's books, and I really enjoyed this one.

But On Juneteenth is not the work of history that one might expect from Gordon-Reed.

This book, is "on" the Texan origins of the Juneteenth celebration, which commemorates the anniversary of the reading of Order Number 3 on June 19, 1865, which informed the slaves in and around Galveston--and throughout the state--that they were now freed. The Civil War had ended in Appomattox Court House two months earlier. Abraham Lincoln was dead and buried. The war--and the peculiar institution at its heart--was over.

But the book is more personal than a straight history. Gordon-Reed is a native Texan, born and raised in a small town in East Texas, and in this short, 140-page reflection on Juneteenth, she relates stories from her family's history, dating back to the days of slavery.

Among the highlights are her memories as the first black student at Hulon N. Anderson Elementary in her hometown of Conroe in the mid-1960s. As part of a community that preserved memories back to slave times, she recounts tales of lynching and cold-blooded murder which predated her bold stand, and she counters the official accounts of these men's deaths, writing, "For many years, Blacks like the ones in Conroe and Livingston--all over the country, really--have had their stories written out of history." How rich, then, that Gordon-Reed has done so much through her scholarship to bring stories like hers and those of the Hemingses of Monticello so fully to life.

While the reader may not find as much history as might be expected, Gordon-Reed's insights are relevant in our current era. Juneteenth has broken out of Texas and gains more celebrants year after year, Blacks and other races celebrating across the country. Reflecting on the history of the holiday, she writes, "Although there was a very long way to go before [Blacks] had full and equal citizenship, we were able to gather together as a family to celebrate [Juneteenth]. Family members who were lost, were lost to death, in the way that all families lose people. No one was being sold away."

On Juneteenth isn't the kind of doorstop-sized history one might expect from a scholar of Annette Gordon-Reed's stature. It is subjective. It is short. It is a personal/family history of a celebration that is gaining steam in our culture. It is well worth reading.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Liveright Press for an advanced galley of the book in return for an honest review.

This is not the history book you're looking for. But it is a very good meditation on race and the legacy of history, with a personal connection that makes it that much more immediate and tangible. What does history mean today? What did it mean to people in the past? How do all these histories overlap, become mythologized or not, and live on in culture and personal experience? How does that change generationally? These are some of the questions that Annette Gordon-Reed's explorations examine.

Everyone will get something from this. The work is approachable and doesn't require background knowledge, although having it adds layers. If this is your jam, be ready to look things up if they dont sound familiar. Your effort will be rewarded.

That said, American history graduate students need to read this. Possibly high level undergraduates as well. These questions and Gordon-Reed laying bare personal experience in order to interrogate the process of history and mythmaking is a rare glimpse into the thinking of one of the best in the business.

Thank you to Annette Gordon-Reed, W.W. Norton, and Netgalley for an advance ecopy in exchange for an honest opinion.