Professor Annette Gordon Reed
My Day
By Dr. J. Ester Davis
Going home to the place of my birth is always a joy. I am familiar with all the little towns, communities, paved and unpaved streets, trails, hunting fields, fishing hole going east and west down I-45 to Conroe, Texas. The greatest things come out of small surroundings. Dispite consistent change, the memories vividly linger.
Annette Gordon Reed is a product of a small town. Booker t. Washington School, the lone black school, first grade through high school graduation was only provided the best teachers in the region. To this day it is amazing to reflect upon the number of success stories that left to make changes and contribute to society. Charles James, now of Miami, from Booker T. Washington, wrote a book of the number of high ranking commissioned military officers this all black school produced.
Professor Annette Gordon Reed’s Mother was one of my teachers at the all black school and the family lived next door to Dorothy and Froncell Reed, a librarian and coach/agriculture teacher. Annette’s Dad was a funeral home director in another section of our black community.
Professor Reed, a University Professor at Harvard has written sixteen(16)book prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2009. Among her writings, I have a favorite. She authored “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy”. Then, there is a must read “Vernon Can Read! A Memoir, which is a collaboration with Vernon Jordan, former Director of the National Urban League, a law partner and personal friend to President Bill Clinton. Her resume is lengthy and full of distinguished brands, i.e., a Visiting Professor at Oxford University, Pforzheimer Professor at Radcliffe Institute, The Frederick Douglass Book Prize, a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was a member of the Board of Trustees at Dartmouth College from 2010 to 2018. Annette is a regular guest at The White House, PBS Books, C-Span, in addition to numerous articles and reviews. Dr. Reed, married, mother of two, is not in Conroe often, but when she is….it is awe awesome. At the Owen Theater last week, Professor Reed reflected upon her writings about Texas, black men loggers and longshoremen.
She expressed her emotions as a seventh grader on the integration of Conroe, moving black students to the all white Conroe High School. In the near all crowded theatre of predominantly white fans, you could cut the tension with a ‘dull’ fork anticipating her analysis of her book “:Juneteenth”. In this book, there is a riveting accounting about Conroe burning a black man at-the-stakes on the Court House grounds. The story was told to her by her grandfather. Our grandfather told us the same story.
This acclaimed professor has special interest in American Slavery and Law, the American Legal History and many, many other adventures in thoughts. So, you can look for her famous signature to again grace a bookshelf near you really soon.
