Juneteenth is America’s vital new national holiday that marks the end of slavery, and its legacy continues to influence our understanding of freedom and our fight for racial justice today.

To mark the occasion, you’re invited to an evening with ANNETTE GORDON-REED, on Tuesday, June 18, in the ALPLM Union Theater.

Gordon-Reed is a MacArthur Genius and the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize for History, is one of the integral voices who brought Juneteenth into the national conversation. Her New York Times bestselling book about this profound day—On Juneteenth—is a powerful, essential work of history that weaves together America’s past with personal memoir; it was named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, TIME, and NPR. The New York Times calls Annette “one of the most important American historians of our time.” She first rose to prominence when she pushed for scholars and the public to take Black people’s versions of history seriously—no matter how inconvenient they may be. Today, she draws on her book to show us how we can learn from the past and keep striving for progress together.

This is a free program, but advance registration is required. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. Program begins at 6:30 p.m.

This special evening is a community collaboration between Springfield’s 30th annual Juneteenth Celebration, the University of Illinois-Springfield Center for Lincoln Studies, and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard. Gordon-Reed won sixteen book prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2009 and the National Book Award in 2008, for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. Her most recent book is On Juneteenth, a memoir and history of Texas. A selected list of her honors includes a Guggenheim Fellowship in the humanities, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the National Book Award.