This book does a lot in a relatively small amount of pages. It gives us a history of Juneteenth focused on how things happened in Texas while also serving as a memoir of Gordon-Reed's childhood in the same state. Despite the longstanding history of Black slavery and oppression in Texas, you can tell that Gordon-Reed has a fondness for her home state. It's refreshing to read from that perspective as so much is presented as cut-and-dry in history and politics. It always is possible, and should be the norm, to lay out the good and the bad when we analyze the past.