June Is a Good Month to Read “On Juneteenth”

As Annette Gordon-Reed explains, her little book is a collection of essays "designed to provide a context for an event that has become increasingly important in the life of the American nation. It’s a look at history through the medium of personal memoir, a Texan’s view of the long road to Juneteenth, the events surrounding the date itself, what happened afterward, and how all of this shaped life in Texas, my family’s life, and my own" (pg. 13). In all of this, she has succeeded in writing a book that should be read by every American and taught in every American school.

I listened to the book on tape when it first came out in 2021. As June 2023 approached, I went back to it this year. This is one of those books that deserves to be read again. In 140 tightly packed pages, Gordon-Reed draws on insights from her own life experiences with the eye of a historian, sensitivity to the complex psychology of race relations, and a social critic’s perspective that recognizes individuals live within the social construct of society.

For example, she complains about a journalist who interviewed her with an agenda. He wanted to talk to a Black historian for his story. His goal was to expose and condemn the white women who were discovered in a relationship with a Black man. He was scandalized because he understood that once exposed, the women blamed the man of rape. And a common result was that the Black man was killed by white men. It is a scandal, but Gordon-Reed refused to let the story end there. She says she failed to help the journalist understand that it is more complicated. The woman could not simply give up the relationship and return to her family and the white community. White society needed to return things to "the proper order," where white men protected women. They did this by killing the Black man. Throughout the book, she uses stories like this to take the discussion of racism to a deeper level. Racism is about real people living in a historical context where there are established social structures and conventions.

Gordon-Reed uses her own life and stories about those around her. She makes it impossible to dismiss racism with simple slogans. It is not the whole story that "The children all get along, so racism will disappear when they grow up," or "There has always been racism, so we need to live with it," or "Education is the answer." Racism has historical roots, and stories of how people have survived and resisted show us how to resist today.

The last essay is specifically about Juneteenth. She tells the history of the United States government establishing schools in Texas for Black citizens and how whites resisted that. She describes how Blacks became political leaders and eventually established wage labor to replace slave labor. All of this was met with strong resistance from white Texans. And she tells about her own great-grandfather, who worked in Galveston, where only a few years before General Gordon Granger delivered General Order No. 3, proclaiming that "all slaves are free." She describes her experience of Juneteenth as a child growing up in rural Texas. The day was called Emancipation Day and included a community celebration in Houston’s Emancipation Park as well as special family traditions.

Gordon-Reed’s book inspires me in two specific ways. First, for me, she made the celebration of Juneteenth a day I now take more seriously. It reminds me of an event that happened in Texas in June of 1865. But the national holiday is also a celebration of the years since 1865. It is a celebration of the spirit, bravery, and commitment to a better world by Black Texans and Blacks around the country. Ending slavery was announced in 1865, but ending the resistance of white people to the full inclusion of Blacks is ongoing. It is important to close the banks and the federal government for one day a year to remind us that every day, the heritage of slavery surrounds us.

Second, she demonstrates how learning about history helps us understand where we have been. And more importantly, learning our history helps us appreciate why people did what they did in the past. When we start with that understanding, it gives us guidance for what, as she says, "people could and should try, in whatever way they can, to make life better for others alive today and for those to come" (pg. 141).

June is a good month to read "On Juneteenth." I can’t imagine anyone reading it without finding their own inspiration.