America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries

by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

The New York Times bestselling author of Begin Again invites us to confront America’s unfinished story—a blistering reassessment of race, freedom, and the myths that bind us.

Celebrated public intellectual Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. returns with a groundbreaking book about the vicious cycles of American history and the country’s enduring refusal to face its true nature—especially at the moments when national anniversaries steer us back toward the mythology meant to disguise the truth.

America, U.S.A., deliberately formulated and beautifully written, details a heart-wrenching exploration of America’s legacy. It is a magnificently complex combination of voices and lessons that, together, paint a sprawling and honest tableau of the United States, its complicated past, and ever more tenuous future. Glaude’s is a powerful voice of conscience in our tumultuous world, and his writing will undoubtedly leave you reeling yet ready for more. He pulls no punches, calling on us to interrogate our conceptions of innocence and freedom and the stories we tell ourselves about our past and present.

Centered around the major celebrations of America’s birthday across 250 years of history, the book offers a riveting look at the battles over who has a stake in the American story. Devastatingly candid, profoundly moving, and deeply reflective, America, U.S.A. is a shining meditation on how we might reckon with a grim past in order to strive for the better angels of our future.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Race

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2026

About the author

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University and author of Democracy in Black.

Reviews

[Brian Shevory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many thanks to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of the urgent and necessary new book America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries by Princeton professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr. I read and thoroughly enjoyed Glaude’s book Begin Again about 5 years ago. I found that book, which uses James Baldwin’s works and ideas as a way to examine race and injustice in America in the 21st century, to be both critical and hopeful in making the case that America has continuously faced issues of racial injustice, but that Baldwin’s writings and ideas can provide useful insight to examine these issues. Glaude never presents the ideas as solutions, but rather uses Baldwin’s life and experiences as like a lens for seeking understanding and contextualizing issues of race, injustice, violence, and inequality that we’ve experienced during the 21st century. I really appreciated how hopeful the book is while maintaining a critical eye on the injustice. Furthermore, I loved how Glaude revisits Baldwin, using literature, essays, and criticism to explore how other great thinkers and writers have navigated challenging times. I wasn’t necessarily expecting the same thing, but America, U.S.A. takes on an entirely different tone and approach in examining the existential questions surrounding the coming semi-quincentennial (250th anniversary) of the founding of the country. Nevertheless, like Begin Again, Glaude turns to other writers, thinkers, and activists, as well as the history of other celebrations of America’s founding, to examine how ideas of history and race have been co-opted, revised, or excluded in order to redefine the idea of America. Although this is a challenging and difficult book to read, it felt like the book I needed to read at this time, as I’ve been inundated with images of flags, stars, stripes, and Uncle Sams presented in a celebratory manner that don’t always seem to reflect my own complicated feelings about the country.
Glaude’s writing is clear and dynamic, not overwrought or dense. It’s not the prose of the book that is challenging, and if anything, the challenge and my own struggles with the book are necessary and contribute to a kind of growth and understanding. One of Glaude’s premises is that 250th celebration of America has been taken over, and with executive orders demanding a fictionalized history that fails to acknowledge the role of racism in the country’s founding, Glaude questions what kind of history and celebration will take place this year. It’s his call to interrogate the past, to reckon with the injustices of slavery that continue to be pushed aside or swept under the rug that plague America, creating a kind of storybook nation that only exists for certain groups of people. To quote spoken word pioneer Gil Scott Heron, this hagiography of history “ain’t no new thing”; it’s been happening since America’s first celebration in 1826, when African Americans couldn’t vote or even petition their representatives, for those who were not enslaved. Glaude examines how America celebrated these varying anniversaries, and how often African Americans and their contributions to the country were often excluded from these celebrations.
Glaude examines the history of these celebrations in Philadelphia, which I found fascinating since I’ve lived in the Philadelphia region my whole life and did not know about some of the events and instances he discussed in the book. Furthermore, it’s important to note that much of Glaude’s analysis examines Frederick Douglass’s seminal speech in 1852 “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” to further interrogate how history and celebrations of the ideals of America ring hallow. Douglass is an important figure to me. I graduated from the school where Douglass gave his last speech, and when I returned there a few years ago, I was excited to see a statue on campus memorializing not only his speech, but his contributions to society and Pennsylvania in particular. Glaude’s chapters not only present Douglass’s most famous speech as a reminder of how exclusionary the fourth can be, but also as a way to encourage readers to further interrogate history and the symbolism and meanings of what we sometimes take for granted as a day off to spend with friends and family at a barbecue or down the shore. Both Douglass and Glaude remind readers of how the “more perfect union” has failed to live up to its lofty standards set forth in the Declaration of Independence, where its initial lines clearly state that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, including Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Glaude also presents a story about how Douglass was denied a seat at the centennial dais in Memorial Hall during the centennial celebration in Philadelphia. Apparently police did not believe that a Black man would have anything to contribute to the celebration. Although he was later allowed to enter the exposition, he was never allowed to speak at the centennial celebration. Glaude presents this story to explore how it is emblematic of how African Americans are often silenced or pushed to the side during these celebrations of America, U.S.A. He later notes instances when Dr. King petitioned Kennedy for more recognition of the contributions of Black Americans, but he and A. Philip Randolph only received an invitation to dinner.
It was also fascinating to learn more about the 1926 celebration in Philadelphia. I’ve visited Memorial Hall, and spent time in the Please Touch Museum’s exhibit about the centennial celebration, but I wasn’t really aware of the 1926 celebrations, probably because, according to Glaude, these were plagued by lower interest and attendance and more funding problems, often related to graft and corruption. Nevertheless, as Glaude documents, it provided an opportunity for A. Philip Randolph to speak, which Glaude notes is an interesting choice since Randolph was the President of the Sleeping Car Porters, who helped to organize key Civil and Labor Rights events. The chapters between these “celebrations” focus on interludes, demonstrating key events that continued to represent the conflict between inclusion and exclusion of African Americans in the portrayal of the history of America. It’s fascinating and important to think about the different ways in which American continued to promote its ideals as it grew to be a global power, yet failed domestically to live up to its standards of liberty and justice for some, but not all. There’s much to unpack here, and I learned much from reading these chapters. However, I think that the book also made me feel so many complicated emotions, and that is even more a reflection of how important and necessary this book is today, especially as we approach a “celebration” that feels so dour and funereal. The last few chapters that focus on the last 50 years are fascinating to read, and I could not put the book down. Part of it is that these are the years which I’ve lived through and learned about through experience. It’s fascinating to learn the different battles and conflicts that have emerged and shaped the ways in which history and our own understandings of the country have been shaped and evolved over time. For me, it was important to know the myths and fairytales we tell about the founding of the country are continuing to erode, and that there are many who are interested in continuing to learn more about and reshape the truth we present to students and others. Yet, it’s also disheartening to know that there are many others who wish to grasp onto the myths and fairytales that we learned as children, and that when confronted with the facts of history, continue to pervert the truth and perpetuate the lies, choosing comfort and complacency over the struggles and challenges of learning and change. Glaude’s book is an important book for many people, but I think that this book is especially important for educators and others working with young people. It’s not only important to learn about the complicated feelings about this nation’s history and why “celebrating” it comes with its own complications and contradictions, but it’s also necessary to learn the kind of propaganda war that is being waged by those with positions of authority and voice in our government and media. It’s important and necessary to recognize the kind of whitewashing they intend in bad faith and disinformation they continue to spew about the diversity in America. Glaude frames this battle as one of consensus versus conflict, where over the past century, America has moved to an idea of consensus about the role of African Americans, and this consensus often neglects the more radical or revolutionary voices, who more often than not, reflect the kind of revolutionary spirit that won freedom from England. Again, it’s part of the complex and complicated nature of our country. However, as Glaude notes, Trump has moved from an idea of consensus that presidents from Reagan to Obama exerted about African American history, to one of imposition and erasure. In the past year, the Trump administration has authored executive orders that sought to erase Black, Indigenous, and other non-white voices and contributions from museums, parks, military libraries, websites, and classrooms. Not only is it a way to shape the history that students learn, but, as Glaude notes, it’s a way to indicate who deserves freedom and citizenship in society. Although Glaude ends the book with the annoyingly whiny words of VP Vance, he also ignites a call for resistance and change, to not only reclaim history, but also to continue to push against the untruths and the unserious and unsettling presentation of the storybook version of America, U.S.A.
There’s more that I need to unpack and examine from this book as it really made me experience a lot of different emotions. There’s much to learn from the book, but I wanted to mention Glaude’s references to DuBois throughout the book as well. Glaude not only includes music to begin each chapter, like DuBois did in Souls of Black Folk, but he also shares DuBois’s acknowledgement that the problem of the 20th century and beyond. DuBois declared that the color-line was the problem of the 20th century, and Glaude acknowledges that this continues to be a problem in the 21st century. It’s also important to call attention to Glaude’s references to DuBois, and that DuBois didn’t frame this as a problem of White people or Black people, but rather the division based on skin color and the oppression that results from this division. However, Glaude notes how DuBois’s color-line problem has evolved to the “desperate avoidance of self-awareness- its refusal to know itself fully, and the deadly consequences for people and the world that follow from that refusal. Ours is a time of shattered mirrors.” This line, and the shattered mirror reference from Baldwin at the end of the book, really resonated with me, and I felt like this demonstrated not only Glaude’s scholarship and references, but also his astute analysis at the ways in which the avoidance of race, injustice, and inequality continue to haunt us, leaving our homes with shattered mirrors that fail to reflect who we really are. Highly recommended and important book!

[Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feared this would be, as Toni Morrison once called them, another one of those “screw whitey books.” There’s nothing inherently wrong with those books—Toni herself acknowledged their necessity—but they can sometimes feel written with the white gaze sitting heavily on their shoulders. As a Black woman, I often feel like I’m overhearing a conversation I can only occasionally nod along to. That’s not the case here.

Glaude manages to speak to everybody at once. Some books talk to Black folk. Some talk to white folk. This one talks to all of us. He isn’t merely telling readers what happened; he’s showing us. He layers the text with block quotes from figures like Du Bois, Douglass, and Baldwin, alongside lesser-known historical sketches like the story of Moses Gordon in 1797 to build his case.

The structure of the book is especially effective. By examining America’s major anniversaries from the Centennial in 1876, to the Sesquicentennial in 1926, to the Bicentennial in 1976, and now toward the upcoming Semiquincentennial, he forces readers to interrogate what we really mean when we say “progress.” How much has genuinely changed? How much oppression has simply changed faces? Are we a white republic or a beacon of freedom? Because we can’t be both. The book tracks those shifts across institutions, from the state to the church, revealing how deeply race shadows the nation’s self-celebrations.

One of the strongest realizations the book provoked in me was, as another reviewer pointed out, healing begins when we stop protecting the stories that are making us sick. Take the 1920s. Popular imagination remembers the Jazz Age. Eddie reminds us it was also the age of the Ku Klux Klan. During the Sesquicentennial International Exposition celebrating America’s 150th anniversary, the Klan was initially approved to hold its annual convention there. A celebration of the American flag unfolding alongside cross burnings. That contradiction may be the clearest summary of this entire book. And that’s only one example. I learned about multiple atrocities against Black Americans tied to July 4th celebrations throughout history, moments rarely included in the patriotic mythology many of us inherited.

Yet, despite how piercing the book is, it never feels academically cold or emotionally detached. As Eddie recently said in conversation with Imani Perry, this book gives us “the resources to speak back to the lies that these people are going to tell on July 4th.”

My chief disappointment was the absence of Black women’s voices. In a book grappling with lynching, racial terror, and the nation’s mythology, I expected at least some engagement with figures like Ida B. Wells. The absence felt sharp.

Still, this is an important and timely work…one that asks America not simply to celebrate itself, but to finally tell the truth about itself.

[Paula W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Crown and Edelweiss for the digital review copy of America, U. S. A. Their generosity did not influence my review in any way.

Born in a small town near me, this author grew up to become a Princeton professor and a familiar face on the 24 hr news cycle. I followed his career and enjoyed his talking points until he did the most insane thing imaginable during the 2016 presidential election. Despite Bernie Sanders ceding the democratic nomination to Hilary Clinton and vowing to campaign for her, this Bernie Bro publicly stated he would not vote for her because she wasn’t enough of a Democrat, and called for others to just leave that section of their ballots blank in protest. His public statement played a huge part in others refusing to vote for Clinton or even show up to the polls at all, resulting in Trump’s unexpected narrow victory. Glaude lost all credibility in my eyes as a pundit and as a progressive in 2016. I certainly no longer think of him as an intellectual, and his type of loud stupidity has cost the nation a lot. I will, however, listen to him on the topic of this book. He is, after all, a black man experiencing racism in a country founded on the backs of black people. This is something he knows something about.

The book looks at the US anniversary celebrations and the racial tensions occurring at the time. He looks at those tensions being the result of a disingenuous population unable to look plainly at the idea that our nation cannot be called the land of the free when some of us never have been. Anniversary celebrations at a venue inevitably use words like “freedom” when black men have the highest rate of imprisonment, or the word “patriotism” when states are denying voting rights, or “unity” while citizens are being beaten in the parking lots. The author covers each period of time — the post-Civil War era, the years of the “negro problem”, the rise of the KKK, the Civil Rights era, the openly anti-black policies of the Reagan and Bushes-plural administrations, the Clinton and Obama eras of black people being unwilling to be quiet any longer, and the era of the rise of openly white supremacists. And that’s where we are today in 2026, the year of our 250th anniversary. Things have changed but not gotten any better because of our inability to look frankly at our self-deception when it comes to the “American dream” and being “the greatest country in the world”. Things never will change until white America lets go of its ego fragility and becomes willing to share freedom instead of insisting on being the ones to determine who gets it. 3.5 stars

[Richard Propes · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are a couple of things worth noting as I begin my reflection on Eddie S. Glaude Jr.'s "America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries."

First off, if you're seeking a comfortable read look elsewhere. A celebrated public intellectual and the bestselling author of "Begin Again," Glaude is unrelentingly truthful in his storytelling and in his approach to looking at American history and our country's refusal to face its true nature. I wouldn't quite say "no holds barred," but "America, U.S.A." is for the reader willing to be educated, challenged, and even confronted.

Basing his analysis within national anniversaries is both profound and jarring. Glaude pinpoints how national anniversaries fuel mythologies disguising truths and perpetuate false stories and national lies.

As an adult with disabilities, I often challenge people to not approach my existence through a lens of what the disability community calls "inspiration porn." If I inspire you, fine, tell me how I inspire you and what I inspire you to do.

In a similar vein, Glaude convicted me as someone who both related to much of his writing and also couldn't relate to much of his writing. At times, Glaude writes with such a gut-punch that I'd mumble to myself "What is mine to do?" when it comes to breaking the cycle and pointing my own village toward a more honest relationship with this country that is complex yet also one I dearly love.

Glaude draws lessons from the likes of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, and Martin Luther King, Jr. among many others. Along our journey through this nation's 250 years, Glaude paints a powerfully researched and emotionally resonant portrait of the nation's cultural and political influences impacting the stories we tell ourselves about the stories this nation has lived.

In the end, it is both simple yet seemingly impossible. We must reckon with our past if we have a hope of striving for a better future.

"America, U.S.A." isn't an entertaining read. "America, U.S.A." isn't a comfortable read. "America, U.S.A." isn't a quick read or a warm and fuzzy read. "America, U.S.A." is, however, a necessary read and a vital read and a profoundly revealing read that lingers in your mind long after you've closed its pages and realized you can't shake Glaude's stories and how he brings them all to life.

[Andre(Read-A-Lot) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truth telling at its very best. Mr. Eddie Glaude,Jr. just keeps getting better and clearer with each publication. It is a joy to experience. And so here he is taking America to task as the run up to the 250 year anniversary of America is rapidly approaching. He does this by revisiting and reviewing the other centennial celebrations since America’s founding. And he is unafraid to say the hard part out loud.

“But in America, those feelings and experiences have always been stained by the ugliness of what white people believe about color—that somehow, or in some inscrutable way, the color of one’s skin determines your value. You end up spending much of your life trying to prove to others and to yourself—not because you are obsessed with white people but because you want to live—that you are not a “ni***r”

He looks at the celebrations of 1876, 1926, 1976 and finally the coming July 4, 2026. And always the question is when will America deal with the truth of its’ past? When?

“If America was to be free, Black folk had to be free, which meant that white people would have to give up the idea that their race made them superior.” That idea is holding strong in 2026, and Eddie Glaude is not entirely optimistic that its demise is certain. In critiquing some of the possibilities to hasten that death, Glaude jabs at the raging popularity of the anti-racism movement, seeing it as empty sentimentality, “Sentimentality is intimately connected with the rage that often comes with its failure.”

He doesn’t offer a solution or a way out, other than truth and discarding the fairytale storybook version of America. Throughout the book he liberally allows other voices to opine and sociologist Robert Bellah has a most apt prescription for America’s malaise. “He put it this way: “If we are to free ourselves for the future we must remember what we would rather forget.” Perhaps, one of Mr. Glaude’s students has said it best, ““What remains,” she wrote, “is not hope, but something just as lasting: the insistence on truth, carried by love and lit by rage.” The struggle continues!! A great big thanks to NetGalley and Crown books for an advanced DRC. Book will drop May 26, 2026!!

[Steffany .O (coffee over apples) · Rating 5 out of 5]

❗️I don't know what I need to do to make every american read this but I will never look at any national holiday the same ever again. This is likely going to be my favorite non fiction book of 2026. Thank you so much to the publisher for sending me an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

What I thought the book On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder fell short on, Eddie Glaude Jr did here with no hesitation. To me it is obvious that holidays are politically assigned public recognition of white values (this is why we are seeing an attack on juneteenth) but I never had the language to explain why. This book gave me to language to clap back.

Glaude walks us through the various July 4th (American independence day) mile stones that happened over the past 250 years as this year of publication marks the 250th anniversary that has been plagued by right wing propaganda that aims at bringing white supremacy together to showcase white power and reinstall whiteness as the "common sense" imagery of American greatness while erasing black history (last I heard this major celebration is being planned in Idaho among other conservative states? Dunno of that changed but Idaho has moved to eliminate black history within education and juneteenth celebrations) .

During each of these anniversaries, we are given a clear image as to the state of black rights during celebrations. In the end he holds no punches calling out the Trump administration for its direct attack on black communities amongst other proponents of liberal ideology. He shows us how current politicians echo the sentiments of history showing us that white rage has always been under the surface.

PLEASE I BEG OF YOU, READ THIS! 👏🏼

[Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

America, U.S.A. by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is one of the most emotionally honest books I’ve read about this country in a long time. Glaude challenges the mythology of American innocence and asks readers to confront the violence, racism, and contradictions embedded in the nation’s foundation especially during moments when patriotism encourages collective

I really enjoyed how literary and reflective this book feels. Through voices like T. S. Eliot, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Martin Luther King Jr., Glaude reminds us that truth-telling is not cynicism but a necessary act of care. As a therapist, I kept thinking about how healing begins when we stop protecting the stories that are making us sick. This is a challenging, urgent, and deeply humane read. I love the embedded poetry and music scores included in the text, too!

[RACHEL · Rating 4 out of 5]

America U.S.A. takes off the rose colored glasses for an honest look at our country each 50 year anniversary and the common threads that run throughout our lives together. We would do well to hear such an account and dare to learn from our wrongs and more honestly reach for our professed values.

My copy was a gift from Goodreads First Reads.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reflection on America over the past 250 years and it's failure to honesty confront slavery and racism. Mr. Glaude looks at the climate of the country and major events at each centennial and the failure of the country to confront racism. This book is not and easy read and can make you feel uncomfortable with the facts but it is an important read.

[Jackie]

I only made it to page 38, but based on what I did read, I think this is a good book. The writing was dense for my old brain. I did not anticipate how depressing it would be. I should have.
I received this as a Goodreads giveaway.