Annette Gordon-Reed

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author

Annette Gordon-Reed, one of the foremost voices on race and history in America, is also an award-winning author of six books that provide rich examinations of American figures central to the country’s mythology. The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family—which won the Pulitzer Prize in History, along with fourteen other awards—has been called “the best study of a slave family ever written” by noted Jefferson scholar Joseph Ellis. 

Impassioned and moving, her latest bestselling book On Juneteenth sets out to capture the integral importance of the holiday to American history. Filled with even deeper, more personal recollections than her previous works, On Juneteenth is a captivating blend of American history, family chronicle, and memoir that explores the violence and oppression that preceded and followed the inaugural celebrations of the holiday, what it means to us now, and how it relates to our larger fight for equality. Following its publication in 2021, this pivotal new text was named one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times.

Gordon-Reed’s refusal to accept simple, one-sided narratives in history has led her to reveal America’s most important untold stories through her work. From growing up in a racially segregated town in Texas, where she was the first child to integrate the town’s all-white schools, to practicing law in New York City, which provided premium training for the historian’s craft, Gordon-Reed brings her own storied experiences in conversation with those of our country to illuminate our shared and complicated history.