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On Juneteenth with Annette Gordon-Reed

Annette Gordon-Reed is an American law professor and Pulitzer Prize winning historian. She is currently the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard University, where she is also the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and a professor of history in the university’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences.

Gordon-Reed is noted for changing scholarship on Thomas Jefferson regarding his relationship with Sally Hemings and her children. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award for Nonfiction and 15 other prizes in 2009 for her work on the Hemings family of Monticello.

Locally there are some Juneteenth celebrations:

This Saturday, June 19th, the city of Chisholm is celebrating Juneteenth at Kiwanis Park from 11-2.  Juneteenth commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in the US. and is also known as African-American Freedom Day.  The event is family friendly with free food and a kid’s bouncy house.   Sponsored by VEMA:Voices for Ethnic and Multicultural Awareness, Iron Range Tourism Bureau and IRRRB.  Listen to our conversation on the Morning Show with Seraphia Gravelle and Nathaniel Coward - founders of VEMA. 

Bemidji will also celebrate Juneteenth:  Project for Change,an organization dedicated to social justice, will hold a free event for the community to celebrate and memorialize the day. The event includes live music, dancing, bagged lunches, booths featuring area organizations and games for children from 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 19, at the Rail River Folk School in Bemidji.

Heidi Holtan is KAXE's Director of Content and Public Affairs where she manages producers and is the local host of Morning Edition from NPR. Heidi is a regional correspondent for WDSE/WRPT's Duluth Public Television’s Almanac North.