What does this mean for Black Texans thinking of the Texas of the past? Being a historian trying to think and write effectively about the American founding, a period in which Black people were living under oppression at the hands of people who did some other things I admire, requires a degree of detachment. I realize that others may take a different tack. Thinking of past events, and people who lived long ago, and observing the process of change over time satisfies my deep interest in the past on its own terms, though I am also interested in the legacies of the past. I don’t feel hostage to
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