Join us for our Juneteenth Celebration!

‍The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and Museum of the African Diaspora, a Smithsonian Affilliate, present

Juneteenth: Connecting The Historic To The Now

A panel of scholars will explore the origins of Juneteenth and discuss the historical and current political significance of the holiday. Panelists:  Annette Gordon-Reed, Carl M. Loeb University Professor of History, Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University; Jelani Cobb, Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at Columbia University; and Imani Perry, Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. Kevin Young, Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, will moderate.

‍You will receive instructions to join via zoom after you sign up here. Please check your spam or junk mail folder if you don’t see the email from MoAD in you inbox.

‍Copies of On Juneteenth by Annette-Gordon-Reed are available for purchase at the MoAD Online Bookstore.

Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. Author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. Gordon-Reed was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011 and was a member of the Academy’s Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences. In 2019, she was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society.

‍

‍

Imani Perry is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. She is a scholar of law, literary and cultural studies, and an author of creative nonfiction. Her writing and scholarship primarily focuses on the history of Black thought, art, and imagination crafted in response to, and resistance against, the social, political and legal realities of domination in the West.

‍

‍

Jelani Cobb, the Ira. A. Lipman Professor of Journalism Columbia Journalism School, writes frequently about race, politics, history and culture. He has contributed to The New Yorker since 2012 and has been a staff writer since 2015. He is the recipient of the 2015 Sidney Hillman Award for Opinion and Analysis writing.

Kevin Young is the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Prior to joining the Smithsonian, Young served as the Director of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture from 2016-2021, where he oversaw significant increases to its funding, archive acquisitions, and visitor reach.

A professor for two decades, he began his career in museums and archives at Emory University in 2005, first as Curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library and later as the Curator of Literary Collections, while serving as Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing.

‍This program is a re-broadcast from the National Museum of African American History and Culture.. Learn about more Juneteenth programming here.

‍MoAD's Juneteenth presentations are made possible by the generous support of First Republic and the Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Foundation