"On Juneteenth" Book Discussion with Wright Memorial Public Library

Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and  searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth provides  a historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting  both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that  African-Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction  through Jim Crow and beyond. All too aware of the stories of cowboys,  ranchers, and oilmen that have long dominated the lore of the Lone Star  State, Gordon-Reed―herself a Texas native and the descendant of enslaved  people brought to Texas as early as the 1820s―forges a new and  profoundly truthful narrative of her home state, with implications for  us all.