Thank you to Libro.fm and Recorded Books for my gifted audiobook copy of On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed.

From start to finish I could not put this down. It could have been five times the length and I still would have been glued to it.

Not growing up in the USA I haven't been taught much about USA history. But perhaps that's a good thing, because now I have the opportunity to learn from more modern and diverse teachings than I probably would have been exposed to in school.

I feel like every line in this book was memorable. But here's something that really stuck with me:

"William Faulkner famously wrote in his 1951 novel Requiem for a Nun 'The past is never dead. It's not even past.' I believe the nobel laureate was wrong about that. The past is dead, but like other formerly living things, echoes of the past remain, leaving their traces in the people and events of the present and future. A bit of history, then, is needed for context..."

The audiobook is wonderfully narrated by Karen Chilton, and comes in at just under four hours long, so you can easily binge it in a day.

If you haven't read this one yet, get on it! You can download the audiobook via the button below, or grab a physical copy here.

Synopsis:

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.

Combining personal anecdotes with poignant facts gleaned from the annals of American history, Gordon-Reed shows how, from the earliest presence of Black people in Texas to the day in Galveston on June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger announced the end of legalized slavery in the state, African-Americans played an integral role in the Texas story.

Reworking the traditional “Alamo” framework, she powerfully demonstrates, among other things, that the slave- and race-based economy not only defined the fractious era of Texas independence but precipitated the Mexican-American War and, indeed, the Civil War itself.

In its concision, eloquence, and clear presentation of history, On Juneteenth vitally revises conventional renderings of Texas and national history. As our nation verges on recognizing June 19 as a national holiday, On Juneteenth is both an essential account and a stark reminder that the fight for equality is exigent and ongoing.