On Juneteenth

by Annette Gordon-Reed

is, I confess here, that I was initially annoyed, at least mildly so, when I first heard that others outside of Texas claimed the holiday.

it’s really a very Texas move to say that something that happened in our state was of enough consequence to the entire nation that it should be celebrated nationwide.

This, in part, accounts for the pained accusations about “revisionist” history when historians talk about things that people had never been made aware of in their history educations. History is always being revised, as new information comes to light and when different people see known documents and have their own responses to them, shaped by their individual experiences.