On Juneteenth

In this chapter, Gordon-Reed discusses origin stories, particularly the way the American origin narrative limits the complexity of African Americans as well as the way a fuller picture illuminates that complexity. Origin stories are about people’s present needs and desires, and they contain the familiar and the superficially familiar, often combining memory and mythology. Plymouth and Jamestown are both integral to the origins of the United States, but Plymouth is the preferred narrative emphasized in American education and psyches because of Jamestown’s character as an economic venture and slave society. Furthermore, the stories of the Spanish, African, French, and Dutch were not included in the American origin story or the story of African Americans. The preference for a nationalist-oriented history told from the perspective of English-speaking white people has circumscribed and limited the construction of Blackness in the United States. 

However, Gordon-Reed emphasizes that the enslavement of Black people and the narratives that followed did not destroy Black people’s personhood. Therefore, their human complexity require attention. An indicator of this complexity is the ability to acquire languages and engage in complex communication. For example, Sojourner Truth spoke Dutch, and Sally Hemmings spoke French.