Juneteenth w/ Annette Gordon-Reed
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer and this is the road to now. |
| 0:07.3 | And today, in anticipation of this year's Juneteenth holiday, we are sharing our fantastic |
| 0:14.4 | conversation with Annette Gordon-Reed, which we recorded back in 2021. |
| 0:19.7 | We recorded this episode right as Annette Gordon-Reed's book came out on Juneteenth. |
| 0:25.0 | We get into so many great topics here, many of which still are looming. |
| 0:30.0 | But in other cases, looking back two years, it's kind of remarkable to see how much progress |
| 0:35.1 | has been made. |
| 0:36.5 | Since 2021, 23 states have made |
| 0:40.0 | Juneteenth a permanent holiday. Shortly after we recorded this, Joe Biden announced in |
| 0:44.9 | 2021 that it was a federal holiday. It really is remarkable to see the embrace of Juneteenth |
| 0:51.3 | and expanding our nation's story to share not just one but many perspectives, |
| 0:57.4 | especially when it's the fundamental question of freedom. So we hope you have a happy |
| 1:02.4 | Juneteenth. We hope you enjoy this episode. And we hope that this brilliance shared with us by |
| 1:07.7 | Annette Gordon-Reed helps you appreciate the holiday just a little bit more. |
| 1:11.9 | Take care. |
| 1:17.3 | Annette Gordon-Reed, welcome to The Road to Now. |
| 1:20.4 | Glad to be here. |
| 1:21.1 | It is an honor to have you here. |
| 1:22.8 | You wrote this magnificent book on Juneteenth. |
| 1:26.1 | I mean, I use the word stunning to describe it. That's not a |
| 1:29.3 | word I use very often, but I felt like 70 once in a while the word fits perfectly. It's a stunning |
| 1:34.3 | book. It tells the story of Juneteenth, but it tells the story of your life. Could you explain |
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