Podcast appearances and mentions of annette gordon reed

In this episode, David Blight, Robert P. George, and Annette Gordon-Reed explore the enduring ideas at the core of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution—including equality, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and government by consent—and examine how those principles have been debated, interpreted, and contested over time. Moderated by Thomas Donnelly, lead scholar at the National Constitution Center, the conversation invites audiences to engage deeply with the ideas that launched a nation and to consider how our shared constitutional story continues to unfold.    This conversation was recorded live in Philadelphia on June 8, 2026, as part of the NCC's America's Town Hall series. It is presented in partnership with the Organization of American Historians and the Sandra Day O'Connor Institute.    Resources  Annotated Declaration of Independence, National Constitution Center  Interactive Constitution, National Constitution Center  The Promise of America: Reflections on Our Enduring Ideals  Stay Connected and Learn More Stay connected with We the People—follow, rate, and review the show wherever you listen. Questions or comments about the show? Email podcast@constitutioncenter.org Follow @ConstitutionCtr on social media and Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate. Support our important work by making a donation today. Donate

In this episode, David Blight, Robert P. George, and Annette Gordon-Reed explore the enduring ideas at the core of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution—including equality, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and government by consent—and examine how those principles have been debated, interpreted, and contested over time. Moderated by Thomas Donnelly, lead scholar at the National Constitution Center, this conversation invites audiences to engage deeply with the ideas that launched a nation, and to consider how our shared constitutional story continues to unfold. Resources Annotated Declaration of Independence, National Constitution Center Interactive Constitution, National Constitution Center The Promise of America: Reflections on Our Enduring Ideals Stay Connected and Learn More  Questions or comments? Email us at programs@constitutioncenter.org  Join us for another upcoming live programs from the NCC.  Follow @ConstitutionCtr on social media and subscribe to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate delivered right to your inbox.   Support our important work by making a donation today.  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate⁠

Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed award winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed, author of ON JUNETEENTH. In the interview, Gordon-Reed discussed the historical significance of Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved people in Texas. She also shared her personal experiences and perspectives on the holiday's origins, evolution, and cultural significance. Born and raised in Texas, Annette Gordon-Reed is a history professor at Harvard University and the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning THE HEMINGSES OF MONTICELLO.  Her web site is https://annettegordonreed.com/. Diverse Voices Book Review Social Media:Facebook - @diversevoicesbookreviewInstagram - @diverse_voices_book_review 

Hello Interactors,A couple weeks ago, I found myself in Tulsa for the first time. I left pleasantly surprised. There's a lot of private money flowing into this town, but the city is filled with sorted stories about land, who holds it, who loses it, and how that loss and potential return is engineered. On Juneteenth, the city's history feels especially close so I thought I'd unpack the layers of displacement, violence, and reinvention that lurk beneath a city still struggling to face them.CONCRETE, COALS, AND A CITY THAT CONCEALSRaise your hand if you like Brutalist architecture (I'm raising mine.) I just didn't expect to find it in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was visiting for my niece's wedding.The Brut Hotel is a converted Brutalist tower a few blocks from the Arkansas River and it's all raw concrete. Even the floors and counters. Most people see Brutalism as cold — which is nice on a hot Tulsa day — but I read it as honest and direct. A bit like a Midwestern prairie settler stereotype. After all, the style did emerge in postwar Europe from an egalitarian impulse. It was meant to be democratic architecture stripped of ornamental excesses of fancy city folks. It arrived in America just in time to become the aesthetic of urban renewal. We mostly got housing projects and highway interchanges built on top of what had been Black and working-class neighborhoods, often by eminent domain and without meaningful consent. Concrete can be made to beautiful, but it's definitely also the material of displacement. Tulsa is no exception.On my first muggy Tulsa morning, I ran from The Brut toward the river. A block or two along, tucked between midtown houses on Cheyenne Avenue, I passed a small park I had read about but didn't know was so close. The bronze sculpture of a flame was the give away. This is Creek Nation Council Oak Park, and it is, in the most literal sense, where Tulsa began.In 1836, the Lochapoka clan of the Creek Nation arrived at this hill above the river after two years on the Trail of Tears. They had carried live coals from their last ceremonial fires in Alabama the entire way — embers kept alive through hundreds of miles of forced march. Under this oak, they set those coals down and kindled a new flame. They named the settlement Talasi, meaning “old town.” White settlers mispronounced it into Tulsa. The term “Trail of Tears” perhaps softens this forced displacement too much. Of the 630 Lochapoka who began the journey, 161 did not survive it. The oak did and it still holds its annual ceremonies. In November 2024, the site was formally returned to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.As I kept running south along the river, a second gathering place was harder to miss. It has a giant sign that reads, The Gathering Place.The Gathering Place is a privately built public-ish park that stretches along the Arkansas River's eastern bank and inland a bit. It's one hundred acres of fountains, climbing structures, event lawns, and restored prairie plantings. It is, by nearly any measure, a stunningly beautiful park. It is also unmistakably the product of a single man's fortune. George Kaiser, the Tulsa-born oil billionaire and philanthropist, has poured more than $350 million into transforming this stretch of riverfront. It's honestly something you'd expect to see in a Northern European city. The park opened in 2018 to national acclaim. The New York Times called it “the most ambitious new park in a generation.” I can see why.But head north from the riverfront, past the gleaming BOK Center arena (“B. OK.” is a financial services company dating back to 1910 oil money and is half owned by Kaiser) and the reclaimed warehouse districts, (including the Bob Dylan Center — Kaiser bought Bob Dylan's archive collection in 2016) and within minutes you are in a different city. North Tulsa — and specifically the Greenwood District — reveals modest homes and stretches of underdevelopment. This is an area that feels like it's being watched and commemorated but it's not entirely clear it is being heard. The Greenwood Rising history center, also primarily bankrolled by Kaiser, opened in 2021 exactly one hundred years after the neighborhood was destroyed in the Tulsa Massacre. This building is also very nice and tells the area's story well. Whether it changes the story is another matter.Cities can act as maps of their own history, so that's how I try to read them. I take note of the distances between prosperity and poverty, commemoration and investment…even a museum and a neighborhood. These are not determinant accidents of the market, but accumulated residue of specific decisions made by specific people over a very long time. To understand Tulsa's geography today, you have to go back not just to 1921, but further — to the rivers and grasslands of Indian Territory the Lochapoka people encountered. It's here you'll find federal ledgers leveraged as weapons, their lines and lists legalizing the largest land liquidation in American history.PROMISES, PARCELS, AND THE POLITICS OF POSSESSIONThe Lochapoka were not the only ones force-marched into Indian Territory. All five of the so-called Civilized Tribes — the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole nations — were relocated from their homelands in the American Southeast across the 1830s. Each tribe were given the same federal promise that the territory would remain theirs permanently. The maps and the Federal treaties said so, but neither turned out to mean much.What the maps did not show, and what the official history long preferred to omit, is that the Five Tribes brought enslaved Black people with them into Indian Territory. As the historians Annette Gordon-Reed and Rose Stremlau have noted in the context of the 1619 Project, the story of this dispossession cannot be told without acknowledging that intersection: the Trail of Tears was also, for some, a forced march into continued bondage (Gordon-Reed et al., 2022). That fact would shape the politics of Oklahoma for generations — and it is the thread that connects the founding fire under the Council Oak to the rise of Greenwood eighty years later.After the Civil War, the federal government's promises to the Five Tribes began to erode almost immediately. The Freedmen — formerly enslaved people who had been held by tribal members — were formally granted citizenship in the tribes by treaty, though the tribes' willingness to honor that citizenship varied considerably. Many Freedmen, seeking mutual protection and economic self-sufficiency, began establishing their own communities. This impulse gave rise to what became known as the Black Towns Movement. Between the 1870s and the 1920s, more than fifty all-Black towns were founded in Oklahoma and Kansas, created by people who had learned, with good reason, not to rely on the goodwill of white-majority governments (Martin, 2025; Gordon-Reed et al., 2022).The legal and cartographic instrument that made the Black Towns possible — and that would ultimately help destroy them — was the allotment system. The Dawes Act of 1887 broke up communally held tribal land into individual parcels, assigning plots to enrolled tribal members and opening the remainder to white settlement. It was framed as a civilizing measure. It was in practice a mechanism for transferring Indigenous land to white hands on an enormous scale. Each parcel was drawn on a map, recorded in a ledger, and assigned a legal description. This act appeared to secure property rights while in fact it made land far easier to steal through legal machinery than it had ever been to simply seize.The discovery of oil made the theft more systematic and more lethal. When crude was found beneath allotments assigned to Native people — particularly in the Osage Nation, the Creek Nation, and elsewhere — a federal guardianship system allowed courts to appoint white guardians for Native landowners deemed “incompetent” to manage their own affairs. The definition of incompetence was flexible and self-serving. Native heirs to oil-bearing land died under suspicious circumstances with startling frequency. Deeds were forged. Guardians enriched themselves and left their wards landless. The historian David Grann has documented this in devastating detail for the Osage Nation specifically, but the pattern was region-wide. Modern GIS analysis of original allotment records against subsequent deed transfers reveals what contemporaries knew but rarely said aloud: the disappearance of Native landowners from oil country was not a coincidence, but a covert policy.For Black Oklahomans, the allotment system created a narrow window of possibility. Freedmen who appeared on the Dawes Rolls received allotments of their own. Some of this land was in proximity to other Black allottees, and the Black Towns Movement capitalized on that geography, incorporating towns, establishing churches and schools, and building the civic infrastructure that Black communities had been denied elsewhere. As scholar JT Martin has argued, the philanthropic traditions within these communities — the mutual aid societies, the church networks, the communal investment in education — were not secondary features of the Black Towns Movement but its essential architecture (Martin, 2025). People who had nothing built institutions that served everyone.Greenwood, established in the early 1900s on the northern edge of Tulsa, was the apex of that project. By 1921, it contained over thirty-five blocks of Black-owned businesses, a hospital, law offices, two newspapers, a library, schools, and churches. Booker T. Washington reportedly called it “the Negro Wall Street,” a phrase that has since become shorthand for what the neighborhood achieved. Although that shorthand flattens what was, more precisely, a masterwork of community-building under conditions designed to make community impossible.As the literary scholar Gary M. Jenkins has observed, Greenwood sat directly along what would become Route 66 (Jenkins, 2022). The all-Black towns of Oklahoma were embedded in the landscape that John Steinbeck traversed in The Grapes of Wrath — and conspicuously omitted from it. The invisibility of Black spatial achievement in the canonical accounts of American westward movement is not incidental. It reflects a pattern in which the places, presence, and prosperity of Black life were purposefully purged from the maps white Americans made of their own country.BURNING, BURYING, AND THE BATTLE TO BELONGOn the night of May 31, 1921, a white mob descended on Greenwood. Over the following eighteen hours, the neighborhood was looted, burned, and bombed — aircraft dropped incendiary devices on residential streets. When it was over, 35 square blocks had been reduced to ash. Somewhere between 100 and 300 people were dead, most of them Black. More than 10,000 Black residents were left homeless. Survivors were interned in camps run by the National Guard — many of whom had also participated in the destruction.What followed the physical destruction was a second, slower erasure. Greenwood residents who attempted to rebuild found themselves blocked by a newly enacted city ordinance that rezoned their land for commercial and industrial use. Insurance claims were denied. Property was effectively seized under the cover of “urban renewal” in subsequent decades. As Morris, Parker, and Negrón have documented, the Tulsa massacre is a case study in what they call “Black community-killing” — the systematic destruction not just of physical structures but of the institutional web that makes a community function: the schools, the churches, the newspapers, the businesses (Morris, Parker & Negrón, 2022). The buildings burned in a day. The community's capacity to reconstitute itself was methodically dismantled over years.For most of the twentieth century, the massacre was not taught in Oklahoma schools. It did not appear in city histories and land was not returned. The story was, in the most literal sense, removed from the map.Kaiser's investments in Tulsa have been substantial and wide-ranging: the Gathering Place, the Greenwood Rising museum, workforce development initiatives, early childhood programs. The philanthropic intent appears sincere, and some of the work — particularly in early education — addresses structural inequities rather than simply aestheticizing them. It would be uncharitable, and inaccurate, to dismiss the whole enterprise as window dressing.But scholar JT Martin poses this question which cuts to the heart of the matter: when we study philanthropy in America, whose philanthropic traditions do we center? (Martin, 2025). The mutual aid societies, the church networks, the community land trusts built by Black and Indigenous communities — these represent forms of collective investment that predate and often outperform the interventions of elite donors, yet they receive a fraction of the scholarly and public attention. George Kaiser's riverfront is visible. The endogenous philanthropic infrastructure of North Tulsa — the churches that held Greenwood together after the massacre, the community organizations that exist today — is largely invisible in the civic narrative that Tulsa tells about itself.The geography makes this concrete. The Gathering Place and the BOK Center sit south on the Arkansas River, in and adjacent to Tulsa's whiter, wealthier districts. Including the area where the Philbrook Museum of Art sits. This Italian Renaissance villa was built in 1926 by oil pioneer Waite Phillips (as in Phillips 66), donated to the city in 1938 as a public art center. It's now one of the finest regional museums in the country. This gesture rhymes with Kaiser's: oil money transmuted into civic cultural institution, the private estate opened to the public as an act of philanthropic legacy-building. The Philbrook is genuinely beautiful and genuinely valuable. It is also located nowhere near North Tulsa.The pattern is not new. Greenwood Rising stands in Greenwood, but the area remains economically depressed, and North Tulsa is still among the most segregated parts of an already divided city. Philanthropic investments that produce a park on the wealthy side of the river and a museum on the historically Black side, while leaving structural inequalities intact, are not reparative.The development around Greenwood tells a more troubling story. ONEOK Field, built in 2010 on historic Greenwood land despite community opposition, has delivered few benefits to Black residents, who are still taxed to support it. Nearby, the Tulsa Arts District has flourished with amenities catering to a whiter, more affluent clientele, while long-standing Black businesses struggle. Even hotels in Greenwood market themselves as part of that district. This is less restoration than a familiar precursor to displacement in the form of cultural investment followed by real estate pressure.Some argue that understanding land and spatial justice in places like Tulsa requires connecting the Greenwood reparations movement to broader Indigenous-led land reclamation efforts (Du, 2021). In 2020, the Supreme Court's decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma ruled that the Creek Nation reservation had never been legally dissolved and that the federal government's century-old maps of Oklahoma had been legally wrong all along. The majority opinion was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative textualist, who applied the same originalist logic to treaty rights that right-wing jurists typically apply to the Second Amendment. The ruling was a genuine landmark, restoring tribal jurisdiction over a substantial portion of eastern Oklahoma. Subsequent decisions have extended the logic to other tribes.The political irony is perplexing. Oklahoma has been among the most reliably right-wing states in the country for decades; its congressional delegation is uniformly conservative; its state government has consistently resisted federal oversight and minority rights claims. Yet it was conservative judicial originalism — the doctrine that legal texts mean what they said when written — that restored, at least partially, what the federal government had promised the Five Tribes in the 1830s. The promise was old, the maps were wrong, and it took a conservative judge to point it out.What McGirt did not do was address the claims of Black Oklahomans. The Freedmen's citizenship rights within the Five Tribes remain contested. The Greenwood reparations movement has won moral recognition but not legal remedy. The 1921 massacre commission recommended reparations in 2001 and they have never been paid. These struggles do feel connected — Black and Indigenous claims to land and sovereignty in Oklahoma have been shaped by the same federal machinery of dispossession, and their futures may be intertwined in ways that neither community has yet fully reckoned with (Du, 2021).Juneteenth, the holiday now recognized federally, commemorates June 19, 1865 — the day enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, were told the war was over (the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued two and a half years earlier) and they were free. What the holiday cannot quite contain is what freedom meant in practice for people who were free but landless. They were free but also targeted. They were also freed from the maps that governed how wealth was accumulated and held in America. The Black Towns of Oklahoma were an answer to these problems and Greenwood was that, for a while. Then it was burned down.What grows back from a fire depends on who tends the soil, and who owns it. In Tulsa today, that question is still being answered. Will the answers be as brutally honest as Brutalism — the idea that a building should be honest about what it is made of? Tulsa is made of oil money and dispossession, Black resilience and white violence, broken treaties and belated reckonings. Despite conservative political domination, the maps are being redrawn. Whether they will finally show all of that honestly — without the decorative Italian Renaissance stucco — is more political than cartographic. But McGirt proves that promises, however papered over, still possess the power to pierce the present.ReferencesDu, Y. (2021). Black geographies unveiled: A critical review. Human Geography. Gordon-Reed, A., Stremlau, R., Lowery, M., et al. (2022). The 1619 project forum. The American Historical Review. Jenkins, G. M. (2022). Steinbeck, race, and Route 66 in The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck Review.Martin, J. T. (2025). Are Black people philanthropists? Toward a more diverse research agenda on philanthropy. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race. Morris, J. E., Parker, B. D., & Negrón, L. M. (2022). Black school closings aren't new: Historically contextualizing contemporary school closings and Black community resistance. Educational Researcher. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

As America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, Jon is joined by Yale historian David Blight and Harvard historian Annette Gordon-Reed to examine the battle being waged over our national story. Together, they explore why origin stories matter to nations and individuals, discuss how a fuller understanding of American history challenges national myths, and consider how we can continue to aspire toward our founding ideals even as we reckon with our failures. Plus, Jon answers listener questions on Trump at 250, the Knicks, and Taco Bell, hopefully for the last time. This episode is brought to you by: GROUND NEWS - Go to https://groundnews.com/stewart to see all sides of every story. Subscribe for 40% off the Vantage Subscription only for a limited time through our link https://groundnews.com/stewart INCOGNI - They can't harm you, if they can't find you! Use code stewart at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/stewart MAGIC SPOON - Get $5 off your next order at https://magicspoon.com/tws SHOPIFY - Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at https://shopify.com/TWS Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more:  > YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast > TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast  > X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod   > BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/theweeklyshowpodcast.com Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic  Producer – Gillian Spear Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Music by Hansdle Hsu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We don't know the faces or names of many enslaved Black people in American history. Some left a small mark of their existence in the very bricks of the buildings their hands built, yet they remain voiceless because their story has been hidden away.Historians like Annette Gordon-Reed know that through sharing the stories of enslaved people, we remember their humanity and preserve historical truth in the process. She's a Harvard University professor and the award-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello and On Juneteenth. With her lawyer-like approach, she's brought light to stories once expunged from our history and provided a view of the road to Juneteenth through her books.In this episode of the Branding Room Only podcast, you'll hear about the national implications inherent in The Hemingses' story (and connection to Thomas Jefferson) and Juneteenth. Annette will discuss her own experiences with celebrating Juneteenth, what the country should learn from the experiences of enslaved people, and more!2:15 - Annette's personal branding definition, three-word description of herself, favorite quotes, and hype song4:30 - The importance of reading and music in Annette's life as a child6:31 - Annette's non-traditional career trajectory as a lawyer, author, and professor10:09 - What motivated Annette to write about the Hemingses and Thomas Jefferson15:43 - The need to understand the truth in shaping the legacies and personal brands we hold dear18:28 - The significance of Juneteenth and why Annette wrote her book on it24:57 - Traditional Juneteenth celebrations Annette grew up with in Texas and newer ones she's seen integrated into the holiday29:29 - The good and (potential) bad about Juneteenth and its importance in the context of American history36:37 - How Annette wants people in the future to remember her contribution to preserving a piece of American history38:31 - Finding fun and continuous growth in humbling activities42:27 - Annette's one uncompromisable aspect and Branding Room Only qualityConnect With Annette Gordon-ReedAnnette Gordon-Reed grew up in Texas and went to Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. Annette practiced law for seven years and then went into academia as a law professor. Her first book, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, was published in 1997. In 1998, DNA corroborated the thesis of Annette's book. Since then, she has written and edited 6 other books, including Vernon Can Read, A memoir with Vernon Jordan and, most recently, On Juneteenth.The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-ReedOn Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-ReedVernon Can Read!: A MemoirMentioned In Truth and Celebration: Stories of Black American History with Annette Gordon-Reed“This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan | YouTube (Official Music Video) “Scherzo Op. 39 No. 3 in C Sharp Minor” by Chopin | YouTube (Pogorelich)PaulaTV: Stagville Plantation Fingerprints of Slave ChildrenSubscribe to The Branding Room Only on YouTubeCall to ActionFollow & Review: Help others find the podcast. Subscribe and leave a quick review.Want more branding insights? Join Paula's newsletter for expert tips and exclusive content! Subscribe HereConferences are an investment—make sure you maximize yours. My Engage Your Hustle™ Conference Playbook gives you the strategies to prepare, stand out, and follow up with impact. Get your copy today.Sponsor for this episodeThis episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.PGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level.Founded and led by Paula Edgar, our work centers on practical strategies that enhance professional development, strengthen workplace culture, and drive meaningful, measurable change.To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.

From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings on race that every American should read Among America's Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race: A Reader (Princeton University Press, 2026), Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson's most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling readers as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects—the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy. These selections come from Jefferson's public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson's ideas about—and self-image in relation to—African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson's conflicted attitudes—and the impact of race and slavery on American history. Annette Gordon-Reed is a New York Times-bestselling historian and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. Her books include The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings on race that every American should read Among America's Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race: A Reader (Princeton University Press, 2026), Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson's most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling readers as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects—the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy. These selections come from Jefferson's public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson's ideas about—and self-image in relation to—African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson's conflicted attitudes—and the impact of race and slavery on American history. Annette Gordon-Reed is a New York Times-bestselling historian and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. Her books include The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings on race that every American should read Among America's Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race: A Reader (Princeton University Press, 2026), Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson's most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling readers as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects—the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy. These selections come from Jefferson's public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson's ideas about—and self-image in relation to—African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson's conflicted attitudes—and the impact of race and slavery on American history. Annette Gordon-Reed is a New York Times-bestselling historian and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. Her books include The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings on race that every American should read Among America's Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race: A Reader (Princeton University Press, 2026), Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson's most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling readers as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects—the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy. These selections come from Jefferson's public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson's ideas about—and self-image in relation to—African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson's conflicted attitudes—and the impact of race and slavery on American history. Annette Gordon-Reed is a New York Times-bestselling historian and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. Her books include The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings on race that every American should read Among America's Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race: A Reader (Princeton University Press, 2026), Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson's most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling readers as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects—the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy. These selections come from Jefferson's public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson's ideas about—and self-image in relation to—African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson's conflicted attitudes—and the impact of race and slavery on American history. Annette Gordon-Reed is a New York Times-bestselling historian and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. Her books include The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/native-american-studies

From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings on race that every American should read Among America's Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race: A Reader (Princeton University Press, 2026), Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson's most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling readers as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects—the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy. These selections come from Jefferson's public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson's ideas about—and self-image in relation to—African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson's conflicted attitudes—and the impact of race and slavery on American history. Annette Gordon-Reed is a New York Times-bestselling historian and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. Her books include The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings on race that every American should read Among America's Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race: A Reader (Princeton University Press, 2026), Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson's most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling readers as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects—the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy. These selections come from Jefferson's public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson's ideas about—and self-image in relation to—African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson's conflicted attitudes—and the impact of race and slavery on American history. Annette Gordon-Reed is a New York Times-bestselling historian and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. Her books include The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings on race that every American should read Among America's Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race: A Reader (Princeton University Press, 2026), Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson's most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling readers as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects—the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy. These selections come from Jefferson's public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson's ideas about—and self-image in relation to—African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson's conflicted attitudes—and the impact of race and slavery on American history. Annette Gordon-Reed is a New York Times-bestselling historian and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. Her books include The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings on race that every American should read Among America's Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race: A Reader (Princeton University Press, 2026), Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson's most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling readers as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects—the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy. These selections come from Jefferson's public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson's ideas about—and self-image in relation to—African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson's conflicted attitudes—and the impact of race and slavery on American history. Annette Gordon-Reed is a New York Times-bestselling historian and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. Her books include The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south

From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings on race that every American should read Among America's Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race: A Reader (Princeton University Press, 2026), Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson's most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling readers as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects—the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy. These selections come from Jefferson's public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson's ideas about—and self-image in relation to—African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson's conflicted attitudes—and the impact of race and slavery on American history. Annette Gordon-Reed is a New York Times-bestselling historian and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. Her books include The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson's writings on race that every American should read Among America's Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race: A Reader (Princeton University Press, 2026), Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson's most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling readers as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects—the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy. These selections come from Jefferson's public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson's ideas about—and self-image in relation to—African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson's conflicted attitudes—and the impact of race and slavery on American history. Annette Gordon-Reed is a New York Times-bestselling historian and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. Her books include The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

For this first episode in the Radicalism in the American Revolution series, historian Annette Gordon-Reed joins me to discuss her new book Jefferson on Race, a collection of writings by Jefferson on the topic of race from throughout his entire career. Anette and I grapple with a pair of irresolvable facts about Jefferson: he was a race radical and an enslaver.You can find the link to Annette's book here: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691122069/jefferson-on-raceHere's the letter to Jefferson from "A Slave" that strikes an apocalyptic tone on slavery and uses Jefferson's own words: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-9200

After more than 12 years of distinguished service as President and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Rosen has transitioned to the role of CEO Emeritus, enabling him to devote his full time and energy to his scholarship and public dialogue.  The Center's Board of Trustees appointed Vince Stango to serve as Interim President and CEO.  From all of us at the National Constitution Center, we express our gratitude to Jeff for his leadership and vision, including his role as the long-time host of the Center's We the People podcast, where he brought constitutional debate to life for millions of listeners.  For the full announcement, visit the website. While you're there, check out the many exciting things, including the Interactive Declaration, and all of our resources for America's 250th!   As we work to bring you the next chapter of We the People, we will continue to share recent programs and episodes from the archive.   In this episode, we're sharing an America's Town Hall program with historians, Akhil Reed Amar, David Blight, and Annette Gordon-Reed, who joined for a sweeping conversation about the Constitution and the debates that have shaped America—from the founding era to today. They examine transformative moments in American history and landmark Supreme Court decisions.  This program is presented in partnership with the Sandra Day O'Connor Institute and the Organization of American Historians. Resources  National Constitution Center Announces Leadership Transition  Stay Connected and Learn More Questions or comments about the show? Email us at ⁠⁠podcast@constitutioncenter.org ⁠⁠ Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr   Explore the ⁠⁠America at 250 Civic Toolkit⁠⁠  Explore ⁠⁠Pursuit: The Founders' Guide to Happiness⁠⁠  ⁠⁠Sign up⁠⁠ to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate  Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen  Join us for an upcoming ⁠⁠live program⁠⁠ or watch recordings on ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Support our important work: ⁠⁠Donate

President Trump calls the Smithsonian museum "out of control," in part, he says, because of its focus on "how bad slavery was." Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed of Harvard University talks with Anderson about the President's latest comments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Akhil Reed Amar and David Blight of Yale University and Annette Gordon-Reed, president of the Organization of American Historians and Harvard professor, join National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen for a sweeping conversation about the Constitution and the debates that have shaped America—from the founding era to today. They explore transformative moments in American history and landmark Supreme Court decisions. This program is presented in partnership with the Sandra Day O'Connor Institute and the Organization of American Historians. Stay Connected and Learn More Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr. Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate. Follow, rate, and review wherever you listen. Join us for an upcoming live program or watch recordings on YouTube. Support our important work. Donate

Today is the national holiday of Juneteenth, and so we'll spend the hour in conversation with Annette Gordon Reed, an author and Harvard professor from Texas, descending from slaves who were directly impacted by the actual events of Juneteenth. We'll be talking about her book On Juneteenth, which is both an essential account and a stark reminder that the fight for equality under the law is exigent and ongoing. Explore the book further: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/677854/on-juneteenth-by-annette-gordon-reed/9781631498831 — Subscribe to this podcast: https://plinkhq.com/i/1637968343?to=page Get in touch: lawanddisorder@kpfa.org Follow us on socials @LawAndDis: https://twitter.com/LawAndDis; https://www.instagram.com/lawanddis/ The post Juneteenth Reflections w/ Annette Gordon Reed appeared first on KPFA.

I revisit an interview with Annette Gordon-Reed (@agordonreed) on her book, On Juneteenth and consider how best to celebrate the history of the holiday and build on and defend its legacy. For more Juneteenth resources, see Penn Law's resources on Juneteenth.  Music by Evan Schaeffer

Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed joins host Alex Lovit to discuss Juneteenth's history and the transformative potential of reckoning with our country's complex past. Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard, where she teaches both history and law. She's the author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family and On Juneteenth.

We don't know the faces or names of many enslaved Black people in American history. Some left a small mark of their existence in the very bricks of the buildings their hands built, yet they remain voiceless because their story has been hidden away.Historians like Annette Gordon-Reed know that through sharing the stories of enslaved people, we remember their humanity and preserve historical truth in the process. She's a Harvard University professor and the award-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello and On Juneteenth. With her lawyer-like approach, she's brought light to stories once expunged from our history and provided a view of the road to Juneteenth through her books.In this episode of the Branding Room Only podcast, you'll hear about the national implications inherent in The Hemingses' story (and connection to Thomas Jefferson) and Juneteenth. Annette will discuss her own experiences with celebrating Juneteenth, what the country should learn from the experiences of enslaved people, and more!3:40 - Annette's personal branding definition, three-word description of herself, favorite quotes, and hype song6:00 - The importance of reading and music in Annette's life as a child8:00 - Annette's non-traditional career trajectory as a lawyer, author, and professor11:40 - What motivated Annette to write about the Hemingses and Thomas Jefferson17:00 - The need to understand the truth in shaping the legacies and personal brands we hold dear19:50 - The significance of Juneteenth and why Annette wrote her book on it25:20 - Traditional Juneteenth celebrations Annette grew up with in Texas and newer ones she's seen integrated into the holiday30:50 - The good and (potential) bad about Juneteenth and its importance in the context of American history38:00 - How Annette wants people in the future to remember her contribution to preserving a piece of American history39:00 - Finding fun and continuous growth in humbling activities43:50 - Annette's one uncompromisable aspect and Branding Room Only qualityMentioned In Truth and Celebration: Stories of Black American History with Annette Gordon-ReedThe Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-ReedOn Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-ReedVernon Can Read!: A Memoir“This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan | Youtube (Official Music Video) “Scherzo Op. 39 No. 3 in C Sharp Minor” by Chopin | Youtube (Pogorelich)PaulaTV: Stagville Plantation Fingerprints of Slave ChildrenFollow & Review: If you enjoyed this episode, leave a 5-star review on your favorite podcast platform! Sponsor for this episodePGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level.Founded and led by Paula Edgar, our work centers on practical strategies that enhance professional development, strengthen workplace culture, and drive meaningful, measurable change.To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.

Juneteenth, the holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, is nearly upon us, and it offers us the perfect moment for reflection. What do we know about Juneteenth? Where did this holiday begin? And how has it grown from a regional commemoration into a national conversation about freedom, equality, and memory? In this episode, we return to our conversation with Annette Gordon-Reed in Episode 304. A native Texan and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Annette brings both personal insight and deep historical knowledge to her book On Juneteenth, which is a rich meditation on Texas history, African American identity, and the long arc of emancipation. Annette's Website | Book | Bluesky Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/304 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

Juneteenth, the holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, is nearly upon us, and it offers us the perfect moment for reflection. What do we know about Juneteenth? Where did this holiday begin? And how has it grown from a regional commemoration into a national conversation about freedom, equality, and memory? In this episode, we return to our conversation with Annette Gordon-Reed in Episode 304. A native Texan and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Annette brings both personal insight and deep historical knowledge to her book On Juneteenth, which is a rich meditation on Texas history, African American identity, and the long arc of emancipation. Annette's Website | Book | Bluesky Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/304 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

So what, exactly, was “The Enlightenment”? According to the Princeton historian David A. Bell, it was an intellectual movement roughly spanning the early 18th century through to the French Revolution. In his Spring 2025 Liberties Quarterly piece “The Enlightenment, Then and Now”, Bell charts the Enlightenment as a complex intellectual movement centered in Paris but with hubs across Europe and America. He highlights key figures like Montesquieu, Voltaire, Kant, and Franklin, discussing their contributions to concepts of religious tolerance, free speech, and rationality. In our conversation, Bell addresses criticisms of the Enlightenment, including its complicated relationship with colonialism and slavery, while arguing that its principles of freedom and reason remain relevant today. 5 Key Takeaways* The Enlightenment emerged in the early 18th century (around 1720s) and was characterized by intellectual inquiry, skepticism toward religion, and a growing sense among thinkers that they were living in an "enlightened century."* While Paris was the central hub, the Enlightenment had multiple centers including Scotland, Germany, and America, with thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Hume, and Franklin contributing to its development.* The Enlightenment introduced the concept of "society" as a sphere of human existence separate from religion and politics, forming the basis of modern social sciences.* The movement had a complex relationship with colonialism and slavery - many Enlightenment thinkers criticized slavery, but some of their ideas about human progress were later used to justify imperialism.* According to Bell, rather than trying to "return to the Enlightenment," modern society should selectively adopt and adapt its valuable principles of free speech, religious tolerance, and education to create our "own Enlightenment."David Avrom Bell is a historian of early modern and modern Europe at Princeton University. His most recent book, published in 2020 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is Men on Horseback: The Power of Charisma in the Age of Revolution. Described in the Journal of Modern History as an "instant classic," it is available in paperback from Picador, in French translation from Fayard, and in Italian translation from Viella. A study of how new forms of political charisma arose in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the book shows that charismatic authoritarianism is as modern a political form as liberal democracy, and shares many of the same origins. Based on exhaustive research in original sources, the book includes case studies of the careers of George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Toussaint Louverture and Simon Bolivar. The book's Introduction can be read here. An online conversation about the book with Annette Gordon-Reed, hosted by the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library, can be viewed here. Links to material about the book, including reviews in The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Harper's, The New Republic, The Nation, Le Monde, The Los Angeles Review of Books and other venues can be found here. Bell is also the author of six previous books. He has published academic articles in both English and French and contributes regularly to general interest publications on a variety of subjects, ranging from modern warfare, to contemporary French politics, to the impact of digital technology on learning and scholarship, and of course French history. A list of his publications from 2023 and 2024 can be found here. His Substack newsletter can be found here. His writings have been translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Hebrew, Swedish, Polish, Russian, German, Croatian, Italian, Turkish and Japanese. At the History Department at Princeton University, he holds the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Chair in the Era of North Atlantic Revolutions, and offers courses on early modern Europe, on military history, and on the early modern French empire. Previously, he spent fourteen years at Johns Hopkins University, including three as Dean of Faculty in its School of Arts and Sciences. From 2020 to 2024 he served as Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy. Bell's new project is a history of the Enlightenment. A preliminary article from the project was published in early 2022 by Modern Intellectual History. Another is now out in French History.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. FULL TRANSCRIPTAndrew Keen: Hello everybody, in these supposedly dark times, the E word comes up a lot, the Enlightenment. Are we at the end of the Enlightenment or the beginning? Was there even an Enlightenment? My guest today, David Bell, a professor of history, very distinguished professor of history at Princeton University, has an interesting piece in the spring issue of It is One of our, our favorite quarterlies here on Keen on America, Bell's piece is The Enlightenment Then and Now, and David is joining us from the home of the Enlightenment, perhaps Paris in France, where he's on sabbatical hard life. David being an academic these days, isn't it?David Bell: Very difficult. I'm having to suffer the Parisian bread and croissant. It's terrible.Andrew Keen: Yeah. Well, I won't keep you too long. Is Paris then, or France? Is it the home of the Enlightenment? I know there are many Enlightenments, the French, the Scottish, maybe even the English, perhaps even the American.David Bell: It's certainly one of the homes of the Enlightenment, and it's probably the closest that the Enlightened had to a center, absolutely. But as you say, there were Edinburgh, Glasgow, plenty of places in Germany, Philadelphia, all those places have good claims to being centers of the enlightenment as well.Andrew Keen: All the same David, is it like one of those sports games in California where everyone gets a medal?David Bell: Well, they're different metals, right, but I think certainly Paris is where everybody went. I mean, if you look at the figures from the German Enlightenment, from the Scottish Enlightenment from the American Enlightenment they all tended to congregate in Paris and the Parisians didn't tend to go anywhere else unless they were forced to. So that gives you a pretty good sense of where the most important center was.Andrew Keen: So David, before we get to specifics, map out for us, because everyone is perhaps as familiar or comfortable with the history of the Enlightenment, and certainly as you are. When did it happen? What years? And who are the leaders of this thing called the Enlightenment?David Bell: Well, that's a big question. And I'm afraid, of course, that if you ask 10 historians, you'll get 10 different answers.Andrew Keen: Well, I'm only asking you, so I only want one answer.David Bell: So I would say that the Enlightenment really gets going around the first couple of decades of the 18th century. And that's when people really start to think that they are actually living in what they start to call an Enlightenment century. There are a lot of reasons for this. They are seeing what we now call the scientific revolution. They're looking at the progress that has been made with that. They are experiencing the changes in the religious sphere, including the end of religious wars, coming with a great deal of skepticism about religion. They are living in a relative period of peace where they're able to speculate much more broadly and daringly than before. But it's really in those first couple of decades that they start thinking of themselves as living in an enlightened century. They start defining themselves as something that would later be called the enlightenment. So I would say that it's, really, really there between maybe the end of the 17th century and 1720s that it really gets started.Andrew Keen: So let's have some names, David, of philosophers, I guess. I mean, if those are the right words. I know that there was a term in French. There is a term called philosoph. Were they the founders, the leaders of the Enlightenment?David Bell: Well, there is a... Again, I don't want to descend into academic quibbling here, but there were lots of leaders. Let me give an example, though. So the year 1721 is a remarkable year. So in the year, 1721, two amazing events happened within a couple of months of each other. So in May, Montesquieu, one of the great philosophers by any definition, publishes his novel called Persian Letters. And this is an incredible novel. Still, I think one of greatest novels ever written, and it's very daring. It is the account, it is supposedly a an account written by two Persian travelers to Europe who are writing back to people in Isfahan about what they're seeing. And it is very critical of French society. It is very of religion. It is, as I said, very daring philosophically. It is a product in part of the increasing contact between Europe and the rest of the world that is also very central to the Enlightenment. So that novel comes out. So it's immediately, you know, the police try to suppress it. But they don't have much success because it's incredibly popular and Montesquieu doesn't suffer any particular problems because...Andrew Keen: And the French police have never been the most efficient police force in the world, have they?David Bell: Oh, they could be, but not in this case. And then two months later, after Montesquieu published this novel, there's a German philosopher much less well-known than Montesqiu, than Christian Bolz, who is a professor at the Universität Haller in Prussia, and he gives an oration in Latin, a very typical university oration for the time, about Chinese philosophy, in which he says that the Chinese have sort of proved to the world, particularly through the writings of Confucius and others, that you can have a virtuous society without religion. Obviously very controversial. Statement for the time it actually gets him fired from his job, he has to leave the Kingdom of Prussia within 48 hours on penalty of death, starts an enormous controversy. But here are two events, both of which involving non-European people, involving the way in which Europeans are starting to look out at the rest of the world and starting to imagine Europe as just one part of a larger humanity, and at the same time they are starting to speculate very daringly about whether you can have. You know, what it means to have a society, do you need to have religion in order to have morality in society? Do you need the proper, what kind of government do you need to to have virtuous conduct and a proper society? So all of these things get, you know, really crystallize, I think, around these two incidents as much as anything. So if I had to pick a single date for when the enlightenment starts, I'd probably pick that 1721.Andrew Keen: And when was, David, I thought you were going to tell me about the earthquake in Lisbon, when was that earthquake?David Bell: That earthquake comes quite a bit later. That comes, and now historians should be better with dates than I am. It's in the 1750s, I think it's the late 1750's. Again, this historian is proving he's getting a very bad grade for forgetting the exact date, but it's in 1750. So that's a different kind of event, which sparks off a great deal of commentary, because it's a terrible earthquake. It destroys most of the city of Lisbon, it destroys other cities throughout Portugal, and it leads a lot of the philosophy to philosophers at the time to be speculating very daringly again on whether there is any kind of real purpose to the universe and whether there's any kind divine purpose. Why would such a terrible thing happen? Why would God do such a thing to his followers? And certainly VoltaireAndrew Keen: Yeah, Votav, of course, comes to mind of questioning.David Bell: And Condit, Voltaire's novel Condit gives a very good description of the earthquake in Lisbon and uses that as a centerpiece. Voltair also read other things about the earthquake, a poem about Lisbon earthquake. But in Condit he gives a lasting, very scathing portrait of the Catholic Church in general and then of what happens in Portugal. And so the Lisbon Earthquake is certainly another one of the events, but it happens considerably later. Really in the middle of the end of life.Andrew Keen: So, David, you believe in this idea of the Enlightenment. I take your point that there are more than one Enlightenment in more than one center, but in broad historical terms, the 18th century could be defined at least in Western and Northern Europe as the period of the Enlightenment, would that be a fair generalization?David Bell: I think it's perfectly fair generalization. Of course, there are historians who say that it never happened. There's a conservative British historian, J.C.D. Clark, who published a book last summer, saying that the Enlightenment is a kind of myth, that there was a lot of intellectual activity in Europe, obviously, but that the idea that it formed a coherent Enlightenment was really invented in the 20th century by a bunch of progressive reformers who wanted to claim a kind of venerable and august pedigree for their own reform, liberal reform plans. I think that's an exaggeration. People in the 18th century defined very clearly what was going on, both people who were in favor of it and people who are against it. And while you can, if you look very closely at it, of course it gets a bit fuzzy. Of course it's gets, there's no single, you can't define a single enlightenment project or a single enlightened ideology. But then, I think people would be hard pressed to define any intellectual movement. You know, in perfect, incoherent terms. So the enlightenment is, you know by compared with almost any other intellectual movement certainly existed.Andrew Keen: In terms of a philosophy of the Enlightenment, the German thinker, Immanuel Kant, seems to be often, and when you describe him as the conscience or the brain or a mixture of the conscience and brain of the enlightenment, why is Kant and Kantian thinking so important in the development of the Enlightenment.David Bell: Well, that's a really interesting question. And one reason is because most of the Enlightenment was not very rigorously philosophical. A lot of the major figures of the enlightenment before Kant tended to be writing for a general public. And they often were writing with a very specific agenda. We look at Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau. Now you look at Adam Smith in Scotland. We look David Hume or Adam Ferguson. You look at Benjamin Franklin in the United States. These people wrote in all sorts of different genres. They wrote in, they wrote all sorts of different kinds of books. They have many different purposes and very few of them did a lot of what we would call rigorous academic philosophy. And Kant was different. Kant was very much an academic philosopher. Kant was nothing if not rigorous. He came at the end of the enlightenment by most people's measure. He wrote these very, very difficult, very rigorous, very brilliant works, such as The Creek of Pure Reason. And so, it's certainly been the case that people who wanted to describe the Enlightenment as a philosophy have tended to look to Kant. So for example, there's a great German philosopher and intellectual historian of the early 20th century named Ernst Kassirer, who had to leave Germany because of the Nazis. And he wrote a great book called The Philosophy of the Enlightened. And that leads directly to Immanuel Kant. And of course, Casir himself was a Kantian, identified with Kant. And so he wanted to make Kant, in a sense, the telos, the end point, the culmination, the fulfillment of the Enlightenment. But so I think that's why Kant has such a particularly important position. You're defining it both ways.Andrew Keen: I've always struggled to understand what Kant was trying to say. I'm certainly not alone there. Might it be fair to say that he was trying to transform the universe and certainly traditional Christian notions into the Enlightenment, so the entire universe, the world, God, whatever that means, that they were all somehow according to Kant enlightened.David Bell: Well, I think that I'm certainly no expert on Immanuel Kant. And I would say that he is trying to, I mean, his major philosophical works are trying to put together a system of philosophical thinking which will justify why people have to act morally, why people act rationally, without the need for Christian revelation to bolster them. That's a very, very crude and reductionist way of putting it, but that's essentially at the heart of it. At the same time, Kant was very much aware of his own place in history. So Kant didn't simply write these very difficult, thick, dense philosophical works. He also wrote things that were more like journalism or like tablets. He wrote a famous essay called What is Enlightenment? And in that, he said that the 18th century was the period in which humankind was simply beginning to. Reach a period of enlightenment. And he said, he starts the essay by saying, this is the period when humankind is being released from its self-imposed tutelage. And we are still, and he said we do not yet live in the midst of a completely enlightened century, but we are getting there. We are living in a century that is enlightening.Andrew Keen: So the seeds, the seeds of Hegel and maybe even Marx are incant in that German thinking, that historical thinking.David Bell: In some ways, in some ways of course Hegel very much reacts against Kant and so and then Marx reacts against Hegel. So it's not exactly.Andrew Keen: Well, that's the dialectic, isn't it, David?David Bell: A simple easy path from one to the other, no, but Hegel is unimaginable without Kant of course and Marx is unimagineable without Hegel.Andrew Keen: You note that Kant represents a shift in some ways into the university and the walls of the universities were going up, and that some of the other figures associated with the the Enlightenment and Scottish Enlightenment, human and Smith and the French Enlightenment Voltaire and the others, they were more generalist writers. Should we be nostalgic for the pre-university period in the Enlightenment, or? Did things start getting serious once the heavyweights, the academic heavyweighs like Emmanuel Kant got into this thing?David Bell: I think it depends on where we're talking about. I mean, Adam Smith was a professor at Glasgow in Edinburgh, so Smith, the Scottish Enlightenment was definitely at least partly in the universities. The German Enlightenment took place very heavily in universities. Christian Vodafoy I just mentioned was the most important German philosopher of the 18th century before Kant, and he had positions in university. Even the French university system, for a while, what's interesting about the French University system, particularly the Sorbonne, which was the theology faculty, It was that. Throughout the first half of the 18th century, there were very vigorous, very interesting philosophical debates going on there, in which the people there, particularly even Jesuits there, were very open to a lot of the ideas we now call enlightenment. They were reading John Locke, they were reading Mel Pench, they were read Dekalb. What happened though in the French universities was that as more daring stuff was getting published elsewhere. Church, the Catholic Church, started to say, all right, these philosophers, these philosophies, these are our enemies, these are people we have to get at. And so at that point, anybody who was in the university, who was still in dialog with these people was basically purged. And the universities became much less interesting after that. But to come back to your question, I do think that I am very nostalgic for that period. I think that the Enlightenment was an extraordinary period, because if you look between. In the 17th century, not all, but a great deal of the most interesting intellectual work is happening in the so-called Republic of Letters. It's happening in Latin language. It is happening on a very small circle of RUD, of scholars. By the 19th century following Kant and Hegel and then the birth of the research university in Germany, which is copied everywhere, philosophy and the most advanced thinking goes back into the university. And the 18th century, particularly in France, I will say, is a time when the most advanced thought is being written for a general public. It is being in the form of novels, of dialogs, of stories, of reference works, and it is very, very accessible. The most profound thought of the West has never been as accessible overall as in the 18 century.Andrew Keen: Again, excuse this question, it might seem a bit naive, but there's a lot of pre-Enlightenment work, books, thinking that we read now that's very accessible from Erasmus and Thomas More to Machiavelli. Why weren't characters like, or are characters like Erasmuus, More's Utopia, Machiavell's prints and discourses, why aren't they considered part of the Enlightenment? What's the difference between? Enlightened thinkers or the supposedly enlightened thinkers of the 18th century and thinkers and writers of the 16th and 17th centuries.David Bell: That's a good question, you know, I think you have to, you, you know, again, one has to draw a line somewhere. That's not a very good answer, of course. All these people that you just mentioned are, in one way or another, predecessors to the Enlightenment. And of course, there were lots of people. I don't mean to say that nobody wrote in an accessible way before 1700. Obviously, lots of the people you mentioned did. Although a lot of them originally wrote in Latin, Erasmus, also Thomas More. But I think what makes the Enlightened different is that you have, again, you have a sense. These people have have a sense that they are themselves engaged in a collective project, that it is a collective project of enlightenment, of enlightening the world. They believe that they live in a century of progress. And there are certain principles. They don't agree on everything by any means. The philosophy of enlightenment is like nothing more than ripping each other to shreds, like any decent group of intellectuals. But that said, they generally did believe That people needed to have freedom of speech. They believed that you needed to have toleration of different religions. They believed in education and the need for a broadly educated public that could be as broad as possible. They generally believed in keeping religion out of the public sphere as much as possible, so all those principles came together into a program that we can consider at least a kind of... You know, not that everybody read it at every moment by any means, but there is an identifiable enlightenment program there, and in this case an identifiable enlightenment mindset. One other thing, I think, which is crucial to the Enlightenment, is that it was the attention they started to pay to something that we now take almost entirely for granted, which is the idea of society. The word society is so entirely ubiquitous, we assume it's always been there, and in one sense it has, because the word societas is a Latin word. But until... The 18th century, the word society generally had a much narrower meaning. It referred to, you know, particular institution most often, like when we talk about the society of, you know, the American philosophical society or something like that. And the idea that there exists something called society, which is the general sphere of human existence that is separate from religion and is separate from the political sphere, that's actually something which only really emerged at the end of the 1600s. And it became really the focus of you know, much, if not most, of enlightenment thinking. When you look at someone like Montesquieu and you look something, somebody like Rousseau or Voltaire or Adam Smith, probably above all, they were concerned with understanding how society works, not how government works only, but how society, what social interactions are like beginning of what we would now call social science. So that's yet another thing that distinguishes the enlightened from people like Machiavelli, often people like Thomas More, and people like bonuses.Andrew Keen: You noted earlier that the idea of progress is somehow baked in, in part, and certainly when it comes to Kant, certainly the French Enlightenment, although, of course, Rousseau challenged that. I'm not sure whether Rousseaut, as always, is both in and out of the Enlightenment and he seems to be in and out of everything. How did the Enlightement, though, make sense of itself in the context of antiquity, as it was, of Terms, it was the Renaissance that supposedly discovered or rediscovered antiquity. How did many of the leading Enlightenment thinkers, writers, how did they think of their own society in the context of not just antiquity, but even the idea of a European or Western society?David Bell: Well, there was a great book, one of the great histories of the Enlightenment was written about more than 50 years ago by the Yale professor named Peter Gay, and the first part of that book was called The Modern Paganism. So it was about the, you know, it was very much about the relationship between the Enlightenment and the ancient Greek synonyms. And certainly the writers of the enlightenment felt a great deal of kinship with the ancient Greek synonymous. They felt a common bond, particularly in the posing. Christianity and opposing what they believed the Christian Church had wrought on Europe in suppressing freedom and suppressing free thought and suppassing free inquiry. And so they felt that they were both recovering but also going beyond antiquity at the same time. And of course they were all, I mean everybody at the time, every single major figure of the Enlightenment, their education consisted in large part of what we would now call classics, right? I mean, there was an educational reformer in France in the 1760s who said, you know, our educational system is great if the purpose is to train Roman centurions, if it's to train modern people who are not doing both so well. And it's true. I mean they would spend, certainly, you know in Germany, in much of Europe, in the Netherlands, even in France, I mean people were trained not simply to read Latin, but to write in Latin. In Germany, university courses took part in the Latin language. So there's an enormous, you know, so they're certainly very, very conversant with the Greek and Roman classics, and they identify with them to a very great extent. Someone like Rousseau, I mean, and many others, and what's his first reading? How did he learn to read by reading Plutarch? In translation, but he learns to read reading Plutach. He sees from the beginning by this enormous admiration for the ancients that we get from Bhutan.Andrew Keen: Was Socrates relevant here? Was the Enlightenment somehow replacing Aristotle with Socrates and making him and his spirit of Enlightenment, of asking questions rather than answering questions, the symbol of a new way of thinking?David Bell: I would say to a certain extent, so I mean, much of the Enlightenment criticizes scholasticism, medieval scholastic, very, very sharply, and medieval scholasticism is founded philosophically very heavily upon Aristotle, so to that extent. And the spirit of skepticism that Socrates embodied, the idea of taking nothing for granted and asking questions about everything, including questions of oneself, yes, absolutely. That said, while the great figures of the Red Plato, you know, Socrates was generally I mean, it was not all that present as they come. But certainly have people with people with red play-doh in the entire virus.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Benjamin Franklin earlier, David. Most of the Enlightenment, of course, seems to be centered in France and Scotland, Germany, England. But America, many Europeans went to America then as a, what some people would call a settler colonial society, or certainly an offshoot of the European world. Was the settling of America and the American Revolution Was it the quintessential Enlightenment project?David Bell: Another very good question, and again, it depends a bit on who you talk to. I just mentioned this book by Peter Gay, and the last part of his book is called The Science of Freedom, and it's all about the American Revolution. So certainly a lot of interpreters of the Enlightenment have said that, yes, the American revolution represents in a sense the best possible outcome of the American Revolution, it was the best, possible outcome of the enlightened. Certainly there you look at the founding fathers of the United States and there's a great deal that they took from me like Certainly, they took a great great number of political ideas from Obviously Madison was very much inspired and drafting the edifice of the Constitution by Montesquieu to see himself Was happy to admit in addition most of the founding Fathers of the united states were you know had kind of you know We still had we were still definitely Christians, but we're also but we were also very much influenced by deism were very much against the idea of making the United States a kind of confessional country where Christianity was dominant. They wanted to believe in the enlightenment principles of free speech, religious toleration and so on and so forth. So in all those senses and very much the gun was probably more inspired than Franklin was somebody who was very conversant with the European Enlightenment. He spent a large part of his life in London. Where he was in contact with figures of the Enlightenment. He also, during the American Revolution, of course, he was mostly in France, where he is vetted by some of the surviving fellows and were very much in contact for them as well. So yes, I would say the American revolution is certainly... And then the American revolutionary scene, of course by the Europeans, very much as a kind of offshoot of the enlightenment. So one of the great books of the late Enlightenment is by Condor Say, which he wrote while he was hiding actually in the future evolution of the chariot. It's called a historical sketch of the progress of the human spirit, or the human mind, and you know he writes about the American Revolution as being, basically owing its existence to being like...Andrew Keen: Franklin is of course an example of your pre-academic enlightenment, a generalist, inventor, scientist, entrepreneur, political thinker. What about the role of science and indeed economics in the Enlightenment? David, we're going to talk of course about the Marxist interpretation, perhaps the Marxist interpretation which sees The Enlightenment is just a euphemism, perhaps, for exploitative capitalism. How central was the growth and development of the market, of economics, and innovation, and capitalism in your reading of The Enlightened?David Bell: Well, in my reading, it was very important, but not in the way that the Marxists used to say. So Friedrich Engels once said that the Enlightenment was basically the idealized kingdom of the bourgeoisie, and there was whole strain of Marxist thinking that followed the assumption that, and then Karl Marx himself argued that the documents like the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, which obviously were inspired by the Enlightment, were simply kind of the near, or kind of. Way that the bourgeoisie was able to advance itself ideologically, and I don't think that holds much water, which is very little indication that any particular economic class motivated the Enlightenment or was using the Enlightment in any way. That said, I think it's very difficult to imagine the Enlightement without the social and economic changes that come in with the 18th century. To begin with globalization. If you read the great works of the Enlightenment, it's remarkable just how open they are to talking about humanity in general. So one of Voltaire's largest works, one of his most important works, is something called Essay on Customs and the Spirit of Nations, which is actually History of the World, where he talks learnedly not simply about Europe, but about the Americas, about China, about Africa, about India. Montesquieu writes Persian letters. Christian Volpe writes about Chinese philosophy. You know, Rousseau writes about... You know, the earliest days of humankind talks about Africa. All the great figures of the Enlightenment are writing about the rest of the world, and this is a period in which contacts between Europe and the rest the world are exploding along with international trade. So by the end of the 18th century, there are 4,000 to 5,000 ships a year crossing the Atlantic. It's an enormous number. And that's one context in which the enlightenment takes place. Another is what we call the consumer revolution. So in the 18th century, certainly in the major cities of Western Europe, people of a wide range of social classes, including even artisans, sort of somewhat wealthy artisians, shopkeepers, are suddenly able to buy a much larger range of products than they were before. They're able to choose how to basically furnish their own lives, if you will, how they're gonna dress, what they're going to eat, what they gonna put on the walls of their apartments and so on and so forth. And so they become accustomed to exercising a great deal more personal choice than their ancestors have done. And the Enlightenment really develops in tandem with this. Most of the great works of the Enlightment, they're not really written to, they're treatises, they're like Kant, they're written to persuade you to think in a single way. Really written to make you ask questions yourself, to force you to ponder things. They're written in the form of puzzles and riddles. Voltaire had a great line there, he wrote that the best kind of books are the books that readers write half of themselves as they read, and that's sort of the quintessence of the Enlightenment as far as I'm concerned.Andrew Keen: Yeah, Voltaire might have been comfortable on YouTube or Facebook. David, you mentioned all those ships going from Europe across the Atlantic. Of course, many of those ships were filled with African slaves. You mentioned this in your piece. I mean, this is no secret, of course. You also mentioned a couple of times Montesquieu's Persian letters. To what extent is... The enlightenment then perhaps the birth of Western power, of Western colonialism, of going to Africa, seizing people, selling them in North America, the French, the English, Dutch colonization of the rest of the world. Of course, later more sophisticated Marxist thinkers from the Frankfurt School, you mentioned these in your essay, Odorno and Horkheimer in particular, See the Enlightenment as... A project, if you like, of Western domination. I remember reading many years ago when I was in graduate school, Edward Said, his analysis of books like The Persian Letters, which is a form of cultural Western power. How much of this is simply bound up in the profound, perhaps, injustice of the Western achievement? And of course, some of the justice as well. We haven't talked about Jefferson, but perhaps in Jefferson's life and his thinking and his enlightened principles and his... Life as a slave owner, these contradictions are most self-evident.David Bell: Well, there are certainly contradictions, and there's certainly... I think what's remarkable, if you think about it, is that if you read through works of the Enlightenment, you would be hard-pressed to find a justification for slavery. You do find a lot of critiques of slavery, and I think that's something very important to keep in mind. Obviously, the chattel slavery of Africans in the Americas began well before the Enlightment, it began in 1500. The Enlightenment doesn't have the credit for being the first movement to oppose slavery. That really goes back to various religious groups, especially the Fakers. But that said, you have in France, you had in Britain, in America even, you'd have a lot of figures associated with the Enlightenment who were pretty sure of becoming very forceful opponents of slavery very early. Now, when it comes to imperialism, that's a tricky issue. What I think you'd find in these light bulbs, you'd different sorts of tendencies and different sorts of writings. So there are certainly a lot of writers of the Enlightenment who are deeply opposed to European authorities. One of the most popular works of the late Enlightenment was a collective work edited by the man named the Abbe Rinal, which is called The History of the Two Indies. And that is a book which is deeply, deeply critical of European imperialism. At the same time, at the same of the enlightenment, a lot the works of history written during the Enlightment. Tended, such as Voltaire's essay on customs, which I just mentioned, tend to give a kind of very linear version of history. They suggest that all societies follow the same path, from sort of primitive savagery, hunter-gatherers, through early agriculture, feudal stages, and on into sort of modern commercial society and civilization. And so they're basically saying, okay, we, the Europeans, are the most advanced. People like the Africans and the Native Americans are the least advanced, and so perhaps we're justified in going and quote, bringing our civilization to them, what later generations would call the civilizing missions, or possibly just, you know, going over and exploiting them because we are stronger and we are more, and again, we are the best. And then there's another thing that the Enlightenment did. The Enlightenment tended to destroy an older Christian view of humankind, which in some ways militated against modern racism. Christians believed, of course, that everyone was the same from Adam and Eve, which meant that there was an essential similarity in the world. And the Enlightenment challenged this by challenging the biblical kind of creation. The Enlightenment challenges this. Voltaire, for instance, believed that there had actually been several different human species that had different origins, and that can very easily become a justification for racism. Buffon, one of the most Figures of the French Enlightenment, one of the early naturalists, was crucial for trying to show that in fact nature is not static, that nature is always changing, that species are changing, including human beings. And so again, that allowed people to think in terms of human beings at different stages of evolution, and perhaps this would be a justification for privileging the more advanced humans over the less advanced. In the 18th century itself, most of these things remain potential, rather than really being acted upon. But in the 19th century, figures of writers who would draw upon these things certainly went much further, and these became justifications for slavery, imperialism, and other things. So again, the Enlightenment is the source of a great deal of stuff here, and you can't simply put it into one box or more.Andrew Keen: You mentioned earlier, David, that Concorda wrote one of the later classics of the... Condorcet? Sorry, Condorcets, excuse my French. Condorcès wrote one the later Classics of the Enlightenment when he was hiding from the French Revolution. In your mind, was the revolution itself the natural conclusion, climax? Perhaps anti-climax of the Enlightenment. Certainly, it seems as if a lot of the critiques of the French Revolution, particularly the more conservative ones, Burke comes to mind, suggested that perhaps the principles of in the Enlightment inevitably led to the guillotine, or is that an unfair way of thinking of it?David Bell: Well, there are a lot of people who have thought like that. Edmund Burke already, writing in 1790, in his reflections on the revolution in France, he said that everything which was great in the old regime is being dissolved and, quoting, dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. And then he said about the French that in the groves of their academy at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows. Nothing but the Gallows. So there, in 1780, he already seemed to be predicting the reign of terror and blaming it. A certain extent from the Enlightenment. That said, I think, you know, again, the French Revolution is incredibly complicated event. I mean, you certainly have, you know, an explosion of what we could call Enlightenment thinking all over the place. In France, it happened in France. What happened there was that you had a, you know, the collapse of an extraordinarily inefficient government and a very, you know, in a very antiquated, paralyzed system of government kind of collapsed, created a kind of political vacuum. Into that vacuum stepped a lot of figures who were definitely readers of the Enlightenment. Oh so um but again the Enlightment had I said I don't think you can call the Enlightement a single thing so to say that the Enlightiment inspired the French Revolution rather than the There you go.Andrew Keen: Although your essay on liberties is the Enlightenment then and now you probably didn't write is always these lazy editors who come up with inaccurate and inaccurate titles. So for you, there is no such thing as the Enlighten.David Bell: No, there is. There is. But still, it's a complex thing. It contains multitudes.Andrew Keen: So it's the Enlightenment rather than the United States.David Bell: Conflicting tendencies, it has contradictions within it. There's enough unity to refer to it as a singular noun, but it doesn't mean that it all went in one single direction.Andrew Keen: But in historical terms, did the failure of the French Revolution, its descent into Robespierre and then Bonaparte, did it mark the end in historical terms a kind of bookend of history? You began in 1720 by 1820. Was the age of the Enlightenment pretty much over?David Bell: I would say yes. I think that, again, one of the things about the French Revolution is that people who are reading these books and they're reading these ideas and they are discussing things really start to act on them in a very different way from what it did before the French revolution. You have a lot of absolute monarchs who are trying to bring certain enlightenment principles to bear in their form of government, but they're not. But it's difficult to talk about a full-fledged attempt to enact a kind of enlightenment program. Certainly a lot of the people in the French Revolution saw themselves as doing that. But as they did it, they ran into reality, I would say. I mean, now Tocqueville, when he writes his old regime in the revolution, talks about how the French philosophes were full of these abstract ideas that were divorced from reality. And while that's an exaggeration, there was a certain truth to them. And as soon as you start having the age of revolutions, as soon you start people having to devise systems of government that will actually last, and as you have people, democratic representative systems that will last, and as they start revising these systems under the pressure of actual events, then you're not simply talking about an intellectual movement anymore, you're talking about something very different. And so I would say that, well, obviously the ideas of the Enlightenment continue to inspire people, the books continue to be read, debated. They lead on to figures like Kant, and as we talked about earlier, Kant leads to Hegel, Hegel leads to Marx in a certain sense. Nonetheless, by the time you're getting into the 19th century, what you have, you know, has connections to the Enlightenment, but can we really still call it the Enlightment? I would sayAndrew Keen: And Tocqueville, of course, found democracy in America. Is democracy itself? I know it's a big question. But is it? Bound up in the Enlightenment. You've written extensively, David, both for liberties and elsewhere on liberalism. Is the promise of democracy, democratic systems, the one born in the American Revolution, promised in the French Revolution, not realized? Are they products of the Enlightment, or is the 19th century and the democratic systems that in the 19th century, is that just a separate historical track?David Bell: Again, I would say there are certain things in the Enlightenment that do lead in that direction. Certainly, I think most figures in the enlightenment in one general sense or another accepted the idea of a kind of general notion of popular sovereignty. It didn't mean that they always felt that this was going to be something that could necessarily be acted upon or implemented in their own day. And they didn't necessarily associate generalized popular sovereignty with what we would now call democracy with people being able to actually govern themselves. Would be certain figures, certainly Diderot and some of his essays, what we saw very much in the social contract, you know, were sketching out, you knows, models for possible democratic system. Condorcet, who actually lived into the French Revolution, wrote one of the most draft constitutions for France, that's one of most democratic documents ever proposed. But of course there were lots of figures in the Enlightenment, Voltaire, and others who actually believed much more in absolute monarchy, who believed that you just, you know, you should have. Freedom of speech and freedom of discussion, out of which the best ideas would emerge, but then you had to give those ideas to the prince who imposed them by poor sicknesses.Andrew Keen: And of course, Rousseau himself, his social contract, some historians have seen that as the foundations of totalitarian, modern totalitarianism. Finally, David, your wonderful essay in Liberties in the spring quarterly 2025 is The Enlightenment, Then and Now. What about now? You work at Princeton, your president has very bravely stood up to the new presidential regime in the United States, in defense of academic intellectual freedom. Does the word and the movement, does it have any relevance in the 2020s, particularly in an age of neo-authoritarianism around the world?David Bell: I think it does. I think we have to be careful about it. I always get a little nervous when people say, well, we should simply go back to the Enlightenment, because the Enlightenments is history. We don't go back the 18th century. I think what we need to do is to recover certain principles, certain ideals from the 18 century, the ones that matter to us, the ones we think are right, and make our own Enlightenment better. I don't think we need be governed by the 18 century. Thomas Paine once said that no generation should necessarily rule over every generation to come, and I think that's probably right. Unfortunately in the United States, we have a constitution which is now essentially unamendable, so we're doomed to live by a constitution largely from the 18th century. But are there many things in the Enlightenment that we should look back to, absolutely?Andrew Keen: Well, David, I am going to free you for your own French Enlightenment. You can go and have some croissant now in your local cafe in Paris. Thank you so much for a very, I excuse the pun, enlightening conversation on the Enlightenment then and now, Essential Essay in Liberties. I'd love to get you back on the show. Talk more history. Thank you. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Host Marcia Franklin sits down with historian and law professor Annette Gordon-Reed about her book, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. The book, which won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, explores the complex bonds between President Thomas Jefferson and one of his slave families, the Hemingses. Using primary source documents, as well as second-hand accounts, Gordon-Reed tries to piece together the relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings, with whom most historians now believe he had as many as seven children. Hemings, a slave at Monticello, was also the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha, who died when Jefferson was 39. A professor at Rutgers University and the New York College of Law at the time of the interview, Gordon-Reed is currently the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School and Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter!  Originally Aired: 12/03/2009 The interview is part of Dialogue's series, "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference," and was taped at the 2009 conference. Since 1995, the conference has been bringing together some of the world's most well-known and illuminating authors to discuss literature and life.

In recent years, from school board meetings to the halls of Congress, Americans have engaged in fierce debates about how slavery and its legacies ought to be taught, researched, and narrated. But since the earliest days of the Republic, political leaders, abolitionists, judges, scholars, and ordinary citizens have all struggled to explain and understand the peculiar institution.  In Making Sense of Slavery, historian Scott Spillman shows that the study of slavery was a vital catalyst for the broader development of American intellectual life and politics. In contexts ranging from the plantation fields to the university classroom, Americans interpreted slavery and its afterlives through many lenses, shaping the trajectory of disciplines from economics to sociology, from psychology to history. Spillman delves deeply into the archives, and into the pathbreaking work of scholars such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Annette Gordon-Reed, to trace how generations of Americans have wrestled with the paradox of slavery in a country founded on principles of liberty and equality.  As the debate over the place of slavery in our history rages on, Making Sense of Slavery shows that what is truly central to American history is this very debate itself. BUY THE BOOK

The HISTORY® Channel continues to cement its place as the leader of premium presidential biographies with the premiere of the six-part television event "Thomas Jefferson" airing consecutively across three nights beginning this Presidents' Day on Monday, February 17 at 8pm ET/PT. Nights two and three will air on Tuesday, February 18 at 8pm ET/PT and Wednesday, February 19 at 8pm ET/PT. Produced for the network by Glass Entertainment Group in association with GroupM Motion Entertainment, "Thomas Jefferson" offers an objective and comprehensive look into the complex life and achievements of the United States' third president, who was widely considered to be one of the patron saints of America's most sacred beliefs, and a central architect in the story of American democracy. Leading up to the landmark 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States in July 2026, The HISTORY® Channel will mark the historic milestone with "HISTORY Honors 250," a dynamic multiplatform initiative spanning nearly two years. Kicking off with the premiere of "Thomas Jefferson," the epic commemoration will include long-form and short-form programming, digital and social content, custom partnerships, premium events and more. "HISTORY Honors 250" will highlight breakthrough innovations, major achievements, and unsung heroes that have shaped the United States since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson was an American Founding Father and spokesman for democracy. As the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, he laid the groundwork for America's founding principles of personal freedom and his vision inspired democratic movements worldwide for nearly 250 years. During his presidency, Jefferson doubled the size of the country and ignited western expansion, transforming the United States from a fledgling nation into a powerful empire, and global force. However, while Jefferson's immeasurable contributions to the origins of American democracy and government have been well documented, his deep connections to slavery remained largely misrepresented in narratives about the early republic and his life for generations. Recent historical scholarship, which has informed this new docuseries, has shed light on his complex relationships with enslaved people and their role in the making of the American republic. Across three nights, "Thomas Jefferson" offers a dynamic exploration of the powerhouse president's complicated legacy, tracing his journey from early childhood to his rebellious young adulthood, which set the foundation for his political acumen and eventual presidency. Through visual recreations, in-depth historical context, and thoughtful commentary from prominent experts, including historian Annette Gordon-Reed, writer Jon Meacham, and descendants of Jefferson himself Andrew Davenport and Gayle Jessup White, this television event authentically presents Jefferson's legacy. It portrays a story of triumph, conflict, and contradiction during pivotal chapters in America's early history.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-unplugged-totally-uncut--994165/support.

As our centennial series continues, David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and the author of The Stained Glass Window: A Family History as the American Story, 1790-1958 (Penguin, 2025), discusses his new book, which turns the historian's lens on his own family tree.EVENT: David Levering Lewis will be in conversation with fellow historian Annette Gordon Reed at 92Y on Thursday, March 13th at 7 PM. Details can be found here:  www.92ny.org/events.  

This week we venture back to one of our earliest podcast episodes to talk about Die Hard with Annette Gordon-Reed and Craig Bruce Smith. We know Die Hard is a Christmas movie, but is it the quintessential 80s film? Find out when you listen in. 

Annette Gordon-Reed has had enormous impact on how historians formulate their questions and search for answers. She will talk about her books and her work at the Baltimore Speakers Series presented by Stevenson University on Thurs. Nov. 14.Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his sbdawes@wypr.org 410-235-1472

There are few men politically or intellectually smarter than President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary Robert McNamara. So how did LBJ and McNamara screw up America's involvement in Vietnam so tragically? According to Peter Osnos, the author of LBJ and McNamara: The Vietnam Partnership Destined to Fail, it might have been because the two men were, in their own quite different ways, too smart. For Osnos - a legendary figure in American publishing who, amongst many other things, edited Donald Trump's Art of the Deal - the catastrophe of America's war in Vietnam is a parable about imperial hubris and overreach. According to Osnos, who has access to much previously unpublished material from McNamara, The Best and the Brightest orchestrated the worst and dumbest episode in American foreign policy. Peter Osnos began his journalism career in 1965 as an assistant to I. F. .Stone on his weekly newsletter. Between 1966–1984 Osnos was a reporter and foreign correspondent for The Washington Post and served as the newspaper's foreign and national editor. From 1984-1996 he was Vice President, Associate Publisher, and Senior Editor at Random House and Publisher of Random House's Times Books division. In 1997, he founded PublicAffairs. He served as Publisher and CEO until 2005, and was a consulting editor until 2020 when he and his wife, Susan Sherer Osnos, launched Platform Books LLC. Among the authors he has published and/or edited are — former President Jimmy Carter, Rosalyn Carter, Gen. Wesley Clark, Clark Clifford, former President Bill Clinton, Paul Farmer, Earvin (Magic) Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Sam Donaldson, Kenneth Feinberg, Annette Gordon Reed, Meg Greenfield, Dorothy Height, Don Hewitt, Molly Ivins, Vernon Jordan, Ward Just, Stanley Karnow, Wendy Kopp, Charles Krauthammer, Brian Lamb, Jim Lehrer, Scott McClellan, Robert McNamara, Charles Morris, Peggy Noonan, William Novak, Roger Mudd. Former President Barack Obama, Speaker of the House Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill, Nancy Reagan, Andy Rooney, Morley Safer, Natan Sharansky, George Soros, Susan Swain, President Donald Trump, Paul Volcker, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and Nobel peace prize Winner Muhammad Yunus, as well as journalists from America's leading publications and prominent scholars. Osnos has also been a commentator and host for National Public Radio and a contributor to publications including Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, and The New Republic. He wrote the Platform column for the Century Foundation, the Daily Beast and The Atlantic.com from 2006-2014. He has also served as Chair of the Trade Division of the Association of American Publishers and on the board of Human Rights Watch. From 2005-2009, he was executive director of The Caravan Project, funded by the MacArthur and Carnegie Foundations, which developed a plan for multi-platform publishing of books. He was the Vice-Chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review from  2007-2012. He is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations. He is a graduate of Brandeis and Columbia Universities. He lives in New York City, with his wife Susan, a consultant to human rights and philanthropic organizations. His children are Evan L.R. Osnos and Katherine Sanford. There are five grandchildren.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

We first cover what was going on in the nation before the emancipation proclamation, then zoom in on Texas specifically and what the culture was like, share some stories from the past, and tie the through-line to why and how people celebrate Juneteenth.Bob White story perspective:https://hauntedconroe.com/murder-in-the-courtroom/Great book on Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed:https://www.amazon.com/Juneteenth-Annette-Gordon-Reed/dp/1631498835/ref=nodl_Texas Constitution 1824 - 1876:https://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/constitutions/republic-texas-1836/general-provisionsVisit us at blackhistoryforwhitepeople.com.Buy our book on Amazon!$5/month supports us at patreon.com/blackhistoryforwhitepeople.Check us out on Twitter @BHforWP and Instagram @BlackHistoryForWhitePeople or feel free to email us at hello@blackhistoryforwhitepeople.com.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/black-history-for-white-people/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Guest: Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. The author of Pulitzer Prize–winning The Hemingses of Monticello and her latest, On Juneteenth.     Feature Photo by Oladimeji Odunsi on Unsplash   The post On Juneteenth: A Conversation with Annette Gordon-Reed appeared first on KPFA.

Today is the national holiday of Juneteenth, and so we'll spend the hour in conversation with Annette Gordon Reed, an author and Harvard professor from Texas, descending from slaves who were directly impacted by the actual events of Juneteenth. We'll be talking about her book On Juneteenth, which is both an essential account and a stark reminder that the fight for equality under the law is exigent and ongoing. Explore the book further: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/677854/on-juneteenth-by-annette-gordon-reed/9781631498831 — Subscribe to this podcast: https://plinkhq.com/i/1637968343?to=page Get in touch: lawanddisorder@kpfa.org Follow us on socials @LawAndDis: https://twitter.com/LawAndDis; https://www.instagram.com/lawanddis/ The post Juneteenth Reflections w/ Annette Gordon Reed appeared first on KPFA.

We don't know the faces or names of many enslaved Black people in American history. Some left a small mark of their existence in the very bricks of the buildings their hands built, yet they remain voiceless because their story has been hidden away.Historians like Annette Gordon-Reed know that through sharing the stories of enslaved people, we remember their humanity and preserve historical truth in the process. She's a Harvard University professor and the award-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello and On Juneteenth. With her lawyer-like approach, she's brought light to stories once expunged from our history and provided a view of the road to Juneteenth through her books.In this episode of the Branding Room Only podcast, you'll hear about the national implications inherent in The Hemingses' story (and connection to Thomas Jefferson) and Juneteenth. Annette will discuss her own experiences with celebrating Juneteenth, what the country should learn from the experiences of enslaved people, and more!2:15 - Annette's personal branding definition, three-word description of herself, favorite quotes, and hype song4:30 - The importance of reading and music in Annette's life as a child6:31 - Annette's non-traditional career trajectory as a lawyer, author, and professor10:09 - What motivated Annette to write about the Hemingses and Thomas Jefferson15:43 - The need to understand the truth in shaping the legacies and personal brands we hold dear18:28 - The significance of Juneteenth and why Annette wrote her book on it24:57 - Traditional Juneteenth celebrations Annette grew up with in Texas and newer ones she's seen integrated into the holiday29:29 - The good and (potential) bad about Juneteenth and its importance in the context of American history36:37 - How Annette wants people in the future to remember her contribution to preserving a piece of American history38:31 - Finding fun and continuous growth in humbling activities42:27 - Annette's one uncompromisable aspect and Branding Room Only qualityMentioned In Truth and Celebration: Stories of Black American History with Annette Gordon-ReedThe Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-ReedOn Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-ReedVernon Can Read!: A Memoir“This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan | Youtube (Official Music Video) “Scherzo Op. 39 No. 3 in C Sharp Minor” by Chopin | Youtube (Pogorelich)PaulaTV: Stagville Plantation Fingerprints of Slave ChildrenSponsor for this episodeThis episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.PGE Consulting Group LLC is dedicated to providing a practical hybrid of professional development training and diversity solutions. From speaking to consulting to programming and more, all services and resources are carefully tailored for each partner. Paula Edgar's distinct expertise helps engage attendees and create lasting change for her clients.To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.

Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed award winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed, author of ON JUNETEENTH. In the interview, Gordon-Reed discussed the historical significance of Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved people in Texas. She also shared her personal experiences and perspectives on the holiday's origins, evolution, and cultural significance. Born and raised in Texas, Annette Gordon-Reed is a history professor at Harvard University and the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning THE HEMINGSES OF MONTICELLO.  Her web site is https://annettegordonreed.com/. Diverse Voices Book Review Social Media:Facebook - @diversevoicesbookreviewInstagram - @diverse_voices_book_reviewTwitter - @diversebookshayEmail: hbh@diversevoicesbookreview.com 

A discussion about Juneteenth and Texas with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annette Gordon-Reed

This week marks 70 years since the Supreme Court's landmark civil rights ruling of Brown v. Board of Education integrated public education. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Annette Gordon Reed of Harvard Law School and the first Black student to enroll in an all-white school in her Texas hometown in 1963, and Kevin Young of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Over the past few weeks, we've been exploring the psychology of partisanship, and how to effectively handle disagreements with those around us. This week, we conclude our US 2.0 series by turning to the past. We talk with journalist Steve Inskeep about how one of the most important leaders in American history — Abraham Lincoln — grappled with the pressing moral question of his time. When, if ever, is it worth compromising your own principles for the sake of greater progress?If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our 2018 conversation about Thomas Jefferson with historian Annette Gordon-Reed. It's the episode called "A Founding Contradiction" in this podcast feed, or you can listen on our website.  

In a special Independence Day episode, scholars Akhil Amar of Yale Law School and Peter Onuf of the University of Virginia join host Jeffrey Rosen for a discussion on the historical legacy of founding father Thomas Jefferson, America's third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence. In a National Constitution Center event a few months ago, Professor Amar announced his intention to “break up with” Thomas Jefferson; and in this episode of We the People, we explore why he's decided to break up with Jefferson—including his actions and views on slavery—and what aspects of Jefferson's legacy deserve defense. Professors Amar and Onuf also explore the positive and negative aspects of his legacy and influence on the country, as well as recommendations on how to understand and study Jefferson today.   Resources: Akhil Amar, The Words That Made Us: America's Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840 (2021) Peter Onuf, The Mind of Thomas Jefferson (2007) Peter Onuf and Annette Gordon-Reed, “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs”: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination (2017) Peter Onuf, Jefferson and the Virginians: Democracy, Constitutions, and Empire (2018) Should We Break up with the Founders?, We the People episode (April 2023) Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org.    Continue today's conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.    Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.    You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library. 

Texas native, Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard University professor and the author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family and On Juneteenth (Liveright, 2021), talks about the history of the Juneteenth holiday and how it's evolved since becoming a federal holiday.

We first cover what was going on in the nation before the emancipation proclamation, then zoom in on Texas specifically and what the culture was like, share some stories from the past, and tie the through-line to why and how people celebrate Juneteenth.Bob White story perspective:https://hauntedconroe.com/murder-in-the-courtroom/Great book on Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed:https://www.amazon.com/Juneteenth-Annette-Gordon-Reed/dp/1631498835/ref=nodl_Texas Constitution 1824 - 1876:https://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/constitutions/republic-texas-1836/general-provisionsVisit us at blackhistoryforwhitepeople.com.Buy our book on Amazon!$5/month supports us at patreon.com/blackhistoryforwhitepeople.Check us out on Twitter @BHforWP and Instagram @BlackHistoryForWhitePeople or feel free to email us at hello@blackhistoryforwhitepeople.com.Our Sponsors:* Check out Factor 75 and use my code blackhistory50 for a great deal: https://www.factor75.com/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/black-history-for-white-people/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Juneteenth, which celebrates the emancipation of enslaved Americans at the end of the Civil War, has gone from a local holiday in Texas to a national day of celebration for many Americans. In this episode we speak with legal scholar and Pulitzer Prize winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed about her new book On Juneteenth and the ways that the holiday, her personal story and the history of the US can help us better understand the world today. Annette Gordon-Reed is Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard University, where she is also the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and a professor of history in the university's Faculty of Arts & Sciences. You can follow her on twitter at @Agordonreed. Update: Since we recorded this episode on June 3, 2021, awareness and celebration of Juneteenth has spread across the country. On June 17th, 2021, President Joe Biden signed legislation that made Juneteenth a federal holiday, and, since 2021, 23 additional states have made Juneteenth an official permanent holiday, bringing the total to 28. This is a rebroadcast of RTN #198, which originally aired on June 7, 2021. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Jelani Cobb, dean of Columbia Journalism School, author, and staff writer at The New Yorker, Jodie Ginsberg, president of the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard University professor and the author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family and On Juneteenth (Liveright, 2021), talk about the 2-day conference for journalists, teachers, and policy makers called Faultlines: Democracy that seeks to shore up one of the bulwarks of democracy -- the free press.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Those words, penned by Thomas Jefferson 246 years ago, continue to inspire many Americans. And yet they were written by a man who owned hundreds of enslaved people, and fathered six children by an enslaved woman. This week, as we prepare to mark Independence Day in the United States, we revisit our 2018 conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed. We talk about the contradictions in Jefferson's life — and how those contradictions resonate in our own lives. If you like this show, be sure to check out our other work, including our recent episode about the power of subtraction.Also, check out our new podcast, My Unsung Hero! And if you'd like to support our work, you can do so at support.hiddenbrain.org. 

Juneteenth, formerly Emancipation Day or Jubilee, celebrates the day slavery ended in Texas, June 19, 1865. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed studies the early American republic and the legacy of slavery. "It was a very, very tense time — hope and at the same time, hostility," Gordon-Reed says. Her book is On Juneteenth.Also, we remember actor Philip Baker Hall, who died June 12. He appeared in the Paul Thomas Anderson films Boogie Nights and Magnolia. He also played a cop on the trail of overdue library books on Seinfeld. He spoke with Terry Gross in 2006. Justin Chang reviews two films streaming now: Good Luck to You, Leo Grande and Cha Cha Real Smooth.