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Annette Gordon-Reed

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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.

by Annette Gordon-Reed via The Wall Street Journal on February 18, 2023
Majority Rule on the Brink

The legacies of our racial past, and the prospects ahead for an embattled republic.

by Annette Gordon-Reed, Chris Lehmann via The Forum on July 27, 2022
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.

by Annette Gordon-Reed via New York Review of Books on August 5, 2021
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.

by Annette Gordon-Reed, Chauncey DeVega via Salon on July 12, 2021
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.

by Annette Gordon-Reed via The Atlantic on May 4, 2021
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.

by Annette Gordon-Reed via New York Review of Books on October 1, 2020
Growing Up with Juneteenth

How a Texan holiday became a national tradition.

by Annette Gordon-Reed via The New Yorker on June 19, 2020
Jefferson’s Doomed Educational Experiment

The University of Virginia was supposed to transform a slave-owning generation, but it failed.

by Annette Gordon-Reed via The Atlantic on November 10, 2019
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?

by Annette Gordon-Reed via New York Review of Books on October 24, 2019
America’s Original Sin

Slavery and the legacy of white supremacy.

by Annette Gordon-Reed via Foreign Affairs on December 20, 2018
MLK: What We Lost

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

by Annette Gordon-Reed via New York Review of Books on October 18, 2018
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Annette Gordon-Reed

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Historians Write About a Different Jefferson Now: Four Books Show How Different

Four new books show how different, and maybe also why.

by S. Richard Gard Jr. via Virginia Magazine on December 1, 2019

Jefferson’s Monticello Finally Gives Sally Hemings Her Place in Presidential History

New exhibits put slavery at the center of Monticello's story, and make it clear that Jefferson was the father of Hemings' children.

by Philip Kennicott via Washington Post on June 13, 2018

Shawn Huckins' painting of Thomas Jefferson with a WiFi symbol over his face, 2017.

Meet Thomas Jefferson

Portraying a 19th-century president.

by C. J. Bartunek via Oxford American on June 6, 2023

Juneteenth parade in Galveston in 2021.

The Story We’ve Been Told About Juneteenth Is Wrong

The real history of Juneteenth is much messier—and more inspiring.

by Peniel E. Joseph via Texas Monthly on May 18, 2023

Henry Arthur McArdle’s The Battle of San Jacinto (1895), depicting the final battle of the Texas Revolution of 1836.

The Long American Counter-Revolution

Historian Gerald Horne has developed a grand theory of U.S. history as a series of devastating backlashes to progress—right down to the present day.

by David Waldstreicher via Boston Review on December 8, 2022

Various members of the Grimke family.

Bleeding Hearts and Blind Spots

What the story of the Grimke family tells us about race in the United States.

by Kellie Carter Jackson via The Nation on November 30, 2022

The author, as a young girl, standing in front of a wall.

As If I Wasn’t There: Writing from a Child’s Memory

The author confronts the daunting task of writing about her childhood memory, both as a memoirist and a historian.

by Martha Hodes via American Historical Review on September 19, 2022

Photos of children from the cover of "The Crisis," 1916

‘Anxious for a Mayflower’

In "A Nation of Descendants," Francesca Morgan traces the American use and abuse of genealogy from the Daughters of the American Revolution to Roots.

by Caroline Fraser via New York Review of Books on April 21, 2022

Illustration of West Ford with laborers working fields in the background, by John P. Dessereau

Did George Washington Have an Enslaved Son?

West Ford’s descendants want to prove his parentage—and save the freedmen’s village he founded.

by Jill Abramson via The New Yorker on March 4, 2022

screenshot of primary source archive with "slut" in search browser and primacy source results listed below

Sluts and the Founders

Understanding the meaning of the word "slut" in the Founders' vocabulary.

by Alexis Coe via Study Marry Kill on January 26, 2022

John Marshall Harlan and Robert James Harlan

The Black Hero Behind One of the Greatest Supreme Court Justices

John Marshall Harlan's relationship with an enslaved man who grew up in his home showed how respect could transcend barriers and point a path to freedom.

by Peter S. Canellos via Politico Magazine on June 6, 2021

Book cover for Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Chernow Gonna Chernow

A Pulitzer Prize winner punches down.

by Alexis Coe via Study Marry Kill on January 30, 2021

Lithograph of William Costin.

The Mount Vernon Slave Who Made Good: The Mystery of William Costin

David O. Stewart discusses the relationship between William Costin and the Washington bloodline.

by David O. Stewart via Journal of the American Revolution on December 22, 2020

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous.

by Leslie M. Harris via Politico Magazine on March 6, 2020

The Hidden Stakes of the 1619 Controversy

Critics of the New York Times’s 1619 Project obscure a longstanding debate among historians over whether the American Revolution was a proslavery revolt.

by David Waldstreicher via Boston Review on January 24, 2020

Aaron Burr — Villain of ‘Hamilton’ — Had a Secret Family of Color, New Research Shows

The vice president is best known for killing rival Alexander Hamilton in an 1804 duel. But he was also a notorious rake, historians say.

by Hannah Natanson via Retropolis on August 24, 2019

Well-Behaved Women Make History Too

What gets lost when it’s only the rebel girls who get lionized?

by Joanna Scutts via Slate on June 21, 2018

Thomas Jefferson and Us

The resurgence of the debate over the Sage of Monticello's legacy: Is Jefferson the ultimate patriot or ultimate hypocrite?

by David Sehat via William and Mary Quarterly on October 1, 2017

Historians Uncover Slave Quarters of Sally Hemings at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello

Archaeologists have uncovered the slave quarters of Sally Hemings at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello mansion.

by Michael Cottman via NBC News on July 3, 2017

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