Historian Annette Gordon-Reed, a Black native of Texas, discusses her home state’s checkered history in this brief volume. Her focus is on the ongoing, complicated legacy of chattel slavery and its corrosive effect on Black-Native-White relationships from early settlements to this day. Both family stories and official accounts inform her work.

The book contains less information on Juneteenth than the title implies, but it does reward the short time it takes to read it. ( )

recommended by Hassan Adeeb

A quick eye opening audiobook that I was quite fortunate to have discovered. ( )

I thought I knew Texas. I even lived there for a brief time long ago. But I clearly bought in to the myths about Texas. And misleading or even delusional myths they are. And our pop culture has reinforced those myths with movies, songs, and characters who are more like who we want to believe they were than who they really were. This short book gets behind the façade as only a Black historian who grew up there, can.

We all know some of the history - indigenous people, the Spanish conquest, the Mexican heritage, The Independent Republic, statehood, the confederacy and because of the recent publicity, Juneteenth and Galveston. And possibly the hurricane that destroyed Galveston. Then there are the myths you sort of knew might be myths, like the defenders at the Alamo, Davy Crockett and Sam Houston, exist in our minds more like TV characters and probably had some less desirable sides. But this book goes further. We learn how slavery became a central feature of Texas especially as it achieved statehood and how it was more closely linked to the confederacy because of slavery. We also learn more about Stephen Austin's role in bringing slavery to Texas. And more jarring revelations like how the native Indians enslaved Blacks. Et tu Tonto?

We also likely know the centrality of Church and family in Black history, especially post-Civil War. But this book shows how family was central to Blacks learning their own history despite the myths that pervaded society more generally. They knew better than that nonsense. To Blacks in Texas Juneteenth was long a day for celebration of a momentous event in their lives, especially in their churches where they were safe from white disapproval of the celebrating. The story of Texas is told through the remembrance of the author of her family's history and how the world outside their doors impacted their lives very personally. Oral history clearly extends what was written down. The book is small, it's what she learned about her state from her family. It helped expand my view. I wanted more. ( )

This extended essay is a mix of Texas history and memoir. As she writes in the “Coda,” Gordon-Reed tried to strike a balance between her love for Texas and its complicated and often controversial history. I think she succeeds and is equal parts critical and curious about the story of her home state as well as her family’s connections in Eastern Texas. I’m glad I picked this up. ( )