Jefferson on Race: A Reader

From the New York Times bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson’s writings on race that every American should read.

Among America’s Founding Fathers, few figures are more deeply entangled in the contradictions of race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The author of the Declaration of Independence—who famously wrote that “all men are created equal”—enslaved more than six hundred African-descended people throughout his lifetime, even as he condemned slavery in principle and viewed himself as morally opposed to it.

In Jefferson on Race, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed assembles Jefferson’s most revealing writings on African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, offering readers an unprecedented opportunity to confront the complexity and contradictions at the heart of his legacy.

Drawing from Jefferson’s letters, public writings, plantation records, and private reflections—as well as accounts from contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and other formerly enslaved people from Monticello—this collection traces Jefferson’s evolving ideas about race, freedom, and human equality. The documents illuminate not only his intellectual positions, but also his personal conduct and interactions with the Black and Native people whose lives were shaped by his power.

By placing Jefferson’s own words in historical context, Gordon-Reed reveals how America’s ideals of liberty coexisted with the realities of enslavement and racial hierarchy. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Jefferson, slavery, and the enduring role race has played in shaping American history.