Annette Gordon-Reed with Brent Staples: Jefferson on Race

In the new book Jefferson on Race, preeminent American historian Annette Gordon-Reed collects the founding father’s most revealing writings on African Americans, slavery, and Indigenous peoples, drawing from public and private papers, letters, and plantation records—as well as accounts by contemporaries, including those he enslaved. These documents offer a direct view into Jefferson’s thinking, tracing how he reconciled his stated opposition to slavery with his lifelong participation in it.