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Jefferson on Race: A Reader Audiobook
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Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello comes a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson’s writings on race.
Among America’s Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson’s most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling listeners as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects—the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy.
These selections come from Jefferson’s public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson’s ideas about—and self-image in relation to—African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people.
Jefferson on Race is essential listening for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson’s conflicted attitudes—and the impact of race and slavery on American history.
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“Accessible, well-curated, and absorbing to read, Jefferson on Race lifts the veil on the many-angled person behind the author of the Declaration of Independence.”
— Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University
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“There is no one on earth better equipped to take on the formidable subject of Thomas Jefferson and race than Annette Gordon-Reed.”
— Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author -
“An extraordinary collection of documents that illuminates Thomas Jefferson’s complicated attitudes toward slavery and race.”
— Gordon S. Wood, Pulitzer Prize–winning author
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About the Authors
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), a Founding Father and primary author of the Declaration of Independence, was born in Virginia into a wealthy and socially prominent family. Considered eloquent in his writing, Jefferson took on much of the writing needed by the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress, both of which he was a member. In 1800 Jefferson was elected president in a tie vote that ironically was decided by Alexander Hamilton. In 1809, after two terms as president, Jefferson returned to his home in Monticello, where he developed, among other projects, plans for the University of Virginia. In addition, he sold his collection of books to the government to form the basis of the Library of Congress.
Annette Gordon-Reed is the author of several books of nonfiction, including The Hemingses of Monticello, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She is the Carl M. Loeb Professor at Harvard University.