Bylines

Annette Gordon-Reed

The author (left) talks with a student at the dedication ceremony for Annette Gordon-Reed Elementary School, October 2022.

A Historian Makes History in Texas

In the 1960s, Annette Gordon-Reed was the first Black child to enroll in a white school in her hometown. Now she reflects on having a new school there named for her.
Illustration of Annette Gordon-Reed.

Majority Rule on the Brink

The legacies of our racial past, and the prospects ahead for an embattled republic.
Diagram relating to Black population and diagram of Georgia occupations by race

The Color Line

W.E.B. Du Bois’s exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition offered him a chance to present the dramatic gains made by Black Americans since the end of slavery.
A supporter of US President Donald Trump holds a Confederate flag outside the Senate Chamber during a protest after breaching the US Capitol in Washington, DC, January 6, 2021. - The demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification.

Jan. 6 Was a "Turning Point" in American History

Pulitzer-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed reflects on the battle for the past and the fragile state of American democracy.

Black America’s Neglected Origin Stories

The history of Blackness on this continent is longer and more varied than the version I was taught in school.
Black women, oil painting

Rebellious History

Saidiya Hartman’s "Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments" is a strike against the archives’ silence regarding the lives of Black women in the shadow of slavery.

Growing Up with Juneteenth

How a Texan holiday became a national tradition.

Jefferson’s Doomed Educational Experiment

The University of Virginia was supposed to transform a slave-owning generation, but it failed.
African-American cowboys in Bonham, Texas, circa 1913

The Real Texas

What is Texas? Should we even think about so large and diverse a place as having an essence that can be distilled?

America’s Original Sin

Slavery and the legacy of white supremacy.

MLK: What We Lost

50 years after King's death, his image has been transformed and stripped of its radicalism.

Female Trouble

Clinton's memoir addresses the gendered discourse and larger feminist contexts of the 2016 presidential campaign.

The Fight Over Andrew Johnson's Impeachment Was a Fight for the Future of the United States

The biggest show in Washington 150 years ago was the trial against the President of the United States.

Charlottesville: Why Jefferson Matters

Annette Gordon-Reed explores the ways in which the many paradoxes of Jefferson make him a potent figure for racists and anti-racists alike.

Our Trouble with Sex: A Christian Story?

"Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America’s Origins to the Twenty-First Century" by Geoffrey R. Stone.

Fresh Takes on the Declaration of Independence

A new look at the Declaration of Independence from 24 scholars across the country.

The Captive Aliens Who Remain Our Shame

A review of Robert Parkinson’s book “The Common Cause: Creating Race and Nation in the American Revolution”.

Slavery and Freedom

Eric Foner, Walter Johnson, Thavolia Glymph, and Annette Gordon-Reed discuss trends in the study of slavery and emancipation.

Jefferson: Hero or Villain? It’s Complicated.

An interview with Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf.
Harriet Beecher Stowe imagining her characters.

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the Art of Persuasion

Stowe’s novel shifted public opinion about slavery so dramatically that it has often been credited with fuelling the war that destroyed the institution.