It was a signal moment, two months after inauguration. Before TV cameras in the State Dining Room of the White House, President Joe Biden unveiled Vice President Kamala Harris’ biggest assignment to date: stemming migration from Central America to the southern United States border. 

What the vice president didn’t realize, President Biden joked, was that by promising she’d be “the last person in the room” before big decisions are made – a sign of her central role in his administration – “that means she gets every assignment.” 

Indeed, Vice President Harris’ remit has only grown since then: She’s now also the administration’s point person on voting rights, COVID-19 vaccination, workers’ rights, the digital divide, and the National Space Council. 

Five months into the Biden-Harris administration – a double-barreled label that intentionally includes her name – Ms. Harris’ position as the highest-level elected woman, and woman of color, in American history can be described as nothing less than a high-wire act. 

That’s not a value judgment on her performance. It reflects the reality of her situation. Her status as Mr. Biden’s political heir apparent, including potentially topping the Democratic ticket in 2024, trains the focus on her even more sharply. 

In short, it’s safe to say that no new vice president has faced such intense scrutiny from Day One. And the stumbles have been well publicized. Most recently, her snappish responses to TV interviewers on why she has yet to visit the still-besieged U.S.-Mexico border have privately frustrated supporters and handed fodder to her detractors. 

Longtime allies argue that Ms. Harris has done as well as can be expected, given how far and how fast she has risen – from district attorney of San Francisco (2004-2011), to California attorney general (2011-2017), to U.S. senator, to vice president.

“Look at her trajectory – it’s been as meteoric a rise as anyone, probably with the exception of [President Barack] Obama, at least in my lifetime,” says Brian Brokaw, who managed her successful campaigns for state attorney general and advised her Senate campaign. 

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Vice President Harris hosts members of the Texas state legislature, who in May blocked passage of a bill that critics said would have made it harder for the people of Texas to vote, at the White House, June 16, 2021.

“With every step she’s taken, there’s a learning curve,” Mr. Brokaw adds. “Every job she has ascended to has greater responsibilities, a wider array of policies, a whole cast of characters to get to know – not to mention the level of scrutiny, which has increased exponentially. There’s not much room for error.” 

As a woman, Ms. Harris has to parry critiques on everything from her mannerisms to her shoes. “When’s the last time someone commented on Mitch McConnell’s footwear?” Mr. Brokaw asks, referring to the Senate GOP leader and alluding to the Converse sneakers the vice president sometimes favors.

At times, however, being a woman in high places has its advantages. On Tuesday, Ms. Harris hosted a dinner for the Senate’s female members – 21 out of 24 came – at the vice presidential mansion. It was a rare moment of bipartisan sisterhood, as seen in a tweet from Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska. Some suggest it could lead to more such gatherings, and the potential for problem-solving, as Senate women have done in the past. 

Still, Ms. Harris’ critics lurk, ready to pounce. Fox News has devoted coverage to her habit of laughing in high-profile public moments, at times awkwardly, suggesting it’s a “defense mechanism” in moments of uncertainty or discomfort. The border crisis is “no laughing matter,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel piled on in a column. 

Ms. Harris has also faced darts from fellow Democrats. Days after inauguration, centrist Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia complained when the vice president appeared on a local West Virginia TV station to promote the administration’s massive COVID-19 relief package without giving him a heads-up. 

She has faced criticism from the left, too, as when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, jumped on the vice president’s statement from Guatemala last week exhorting potential migrants: “Do not come.” 

No matter that that’s been the administration position from the start, and that the overarching policy goal is to address the root causes of migration northward from Central America. Still, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez saw her opening, and tweeted that the vice president’s message was “disappointing,” seeking asylum is legal, and the U.S. bears blame for destabilizing the region. 

The mere fact that two women of color could dominate debate on a major policy question is itself a victory of “representation.” But that doesn’t necessarily make it easier for women in high places. 

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Vice President Harris and Guatemala's Minister of Foreign Affairs Pedro Brolo wave at her arrival ceremony in Guatemala City, June 6, 2021, at Guatemalan Air Force Central Command.

“There are still terrible double standards out there for women. How strong, for example, can they be?” says Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “She’s vice president – she can’t overshadow Joe Biden, she can’t disagree with him. She’s just in a very difficult spot.” 

Ms. Walsh also notes that Ms. Harris has taken on two of the toughest issues of the day: the border and voting rights, the latter of which she requested. But if she were given an easier portfolio, the reaction would be, “They’re giving her softballs so she looks good.” 

There have also been suggestions that Mr. Biden is giving her the toughest assignments to shield himself. That’s unlikely, says Joel Goldstein, a scholar on the vice presidency. 

“When you’re president, as Harry Truman said, ‘The buck stops here,’” he says. “If things go south, people won’t say it was Harris’ fault and ‘Biden, you’re wonderful.’ He won’t escape responsibility.”

An unusual vice presidency 

In recent decades, Americans have frequently elected outsiders as president, with an experienced Washington hand as vice president. The Biden-Harris team is an anomaly, with a former vice president and six-term senator as president and a vice president who came to the Senate only in 2017. 

But Mr. Biden is still following President Jimmy Carter’s model of involving his No. 2 deeply in policymaking and foreign policy. Ms. Harris, in fact, called President Carter’s deputy, Walter Mondale – credited with establishing the modern vice presidency – in April, the day before he died. 

Mr. Biden telegraphed well in advance that his running mate would be a woman, and it came as no surprise when he selected a woman of color – and the daughter of immigrants, with an Indian mother and Jamaican father. Overall, the Biden watchword in building his government has been diversity: In his first 100 days, more than half of agency appointees were women, 18% were Black, and 15% were Hispanic. 

“There has never been an administration that has made such an effort to be inclusive of traditionally excluded groups in its composition as this one,” says Mr. Goldstein, a law professor emeritus at Saint Louis University. “[Ms. Harris] personifies that.” 

Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris do have an important résumé point in common: presidential campaigns that failed spectacularly, only to see their political fortunes resurrected by joining an ultimately successful ticket. 

Ms. Harris’ well-orchestrated presidential rollout proved to be the peak of her campaign, which was riven by internal staff conflicts and poor fundraising. She dropped out in December 2019. 

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Vice President Harris listens as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building auditorium on the White House complex in Washington, June 15, 2021.

In 2020, Mr. Biden chose Ms. Harris in a competitive process, despite her attack on him in a Democratic primary debate over his opposition to busing in the 1970s. The Bidens were taken aback at the time, but Ms. Harris later dismissed the skirmish as just politics and Mr. Biden let it go. 

It’s no coincidence that most of Ms. Harris’ current staff didn’t come from her campaign or Senate office, says a source familiar with the vice president’s operation who requested anonymity to speak freely.

“It wasn’t a well-run presidential campaign,” says the source, noting that the Biden team didn’t want people who orchestrated that debate attack in his White House. The goal was “to make sure they had a unified operation.”

The president and Ms. Harris often receive the president’s daily intelligence brief together, and they have lunch weekly. Ms. Harris also reportedly has a weekly one-on-one meeting with White House chief of staff Ron Klain.

By many accounts, Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris have a warm relationship, going back to her connection to Beau Biden – the president’s late son, who served as attorney general of Delaware when Ms. Harris held the same position in California.

Parallels with Obama

The fact that Mr. Biden loyally served eight years under President Obama, the first Black president, also looms large. Goodwill among Black voters was key to both Mr. Biden’s nomination and election – and his elevation of Ms. Harris as the first Black vice president fits his model of inclusion. 

The parallels in the Harris and Obama life stories are striking. Both are mixed-race children of immigrants, raised by strong single mothers, and both spent periods of their youth in foreign countries. Both also speak of how they made conscious decisions to embrace their Black identity. Ms. Harris attended the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C. 

Now, in the upper reaches of American politics, Ms. Harris also benefits from the path forged by Mr. Obama, who walked his own tightrope when addressing racial matters – guarded at first but, over time, more comfortable and willing to speak out. 

“Obama especially, but even Kamala Harris to a degree, has been able to capitalize on identity,” says LaFleur Stephens-Dougan, a political scientist at Princeton University. “They can help build bridges and cross cultural divides.”

Unlike Mr. Obama, Ms. Harris begins her time on the national stage during a period of racial ferment. That, in a way, made Mr. Biden’s selection of a Black running mate all the more logical, as he sought to show voters he’s serious about inclusion and making sure that when decisions are made, there’s diversity in the room. 

But like Mr. Obama, Ms. Harris tiptoes carefully when asked to discuss race in America, notes Professor Stephens-Dougan. Last April, after Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina – the Senate’s only Black Republican – asserted that America is not a “racist country,” Ms. Harris was asked to respond. 

“No, I don’t think America is a racist country,” she said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “But we also do have to speak the truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today.”

Ms. Harris’ background as a prosecutor, and her tough-on-crime approach, has also forced her to walk a fine line on a racially charged subject. Many progressives believe she was on the wrong side of efforts to reform the criminal justice system. But for the nation’s vast political center, that element of her résumé helped frame her as a more moderate Democrat, like Mr. Biden. 

Progressives in Congress are hopeful that through genial persuasion – and the occasional jab, as with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez – Ms. Harris can be an ally. 

In an interview, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, a deputy whip in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, says he wants Ms. Harris to help push a $15 federal minimum wage through Congress, as well as climate change measures, cancellation of student debt, and a scaling back of “massive defense increases.” 

But he also empathizes, as the son of Indian immigrants, with the challenges she’s navigating. 

“I understand the scrutiny as an Indian American, but I imagine in her case it’s 100-fold – being vice president, being a woman, being African American as well,” says Congressman Khanna, who first met Ms. Harris in 2003. He’s also confident that “she will continue to conduct herself with dignity and grace.” 

Then he throws out an invitation: “I’d love for her to come talk to the Progressive Caucus.” 

For most of the past decade, Egypt has been preoccupied by domestic concerns: A popular revolution, a military coup, and repeated economic shocks have absorbed the nation’s attention.

But now, as the United States shifts its diplomatic focus away from the Middle East and toward China, Cairo is stepping forward to make its regional presence felt anew. From Libya, through Gaza to Syria, Egypt is seeking to regain its old role as the region’s undisputed leader.

“We have been trying to rebuild and re-stabilize our country. Part of that process is now regaining our role in the region,” says Nabil Fahmy, former Egyptian foreign minister and ambassador to the U.S.

“To project Egypt the way we want to as a leader, we need to project ourselves as a player in settling the region’s conflicts,” he adds.

That matches Washington’s search for allies who can uphold regional security and stability. Egypt is putting itself forward as the perfect candidate for the job, and the Biden administration appears ready to agree, setting aside its concerns over the Egyptian government’s human rights violations.

Under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former army chief, the government has concentrated largely on reforming the economy and eliminating any political opposition. International human rights groups say Mr. Sisi has jailed more than 60,000 critics since he seized power in a 2013 coup.

Internationally, Cairo has tended to follow the lead of the two Gulf kingdoms that have bankrolled Mr. Sisi, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

But Egypt has increasingly found itself impacted by regional conflicts, says Walid Kazziha professor of political science at the American University of Cairo.

“When Egypt was aloof on regional issues, regional issues eventually found their way to impinge on Egypt and put it on the defensive,” he explains. “To defend itself, Egypt realized it had to play a regional role.”

Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Palestinian Hamas Gaza Chief Yehya Al-Sinwar and head of Egyptian intelligence Abbas Kamel meet in Gaza May 31, 2021.

Leave it to Egypt

Egypt was given that opportunity in May when war broke out in neighboring Gaza between Israel and the radical Islamist group Hamas, which rules the enclave.

Acting as a diplomatic back channel, Cairo brokered a cease-fire to end the 11-day conflict and earned American plaudits for doing so. President Joe Biden expressed his “sincere gratitude” to President Sisi.

That was a far cry from the days on the U.S. campaign trail when Mr. Biden excoriated Egypt for its human rights violations and pledged he would offer “no blank checks.”

But “stability and security have long taken priority over human rights concerns” in the Middle East, points out Steven A. Cook, a regional expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “The recent conflict in Gaza and the rehabilitation of Egypt, which has an appalling human rights record, highlight this dynamic.”

“Today there is a willingness by the Americans to leave the role of mediation between Palestinians and Israelis to other parties who can work within the framework of the American vision,” Professor Kazziha says. “Egypt has snatched the opportunity.”

In recent days, Egypt has cemented its presence in the Gaza Strip, which marks its Eastern border along the Sinai Peninsula, dispatching senior security delegations to Gaza to secure a more permanent cease-fire. It has also pledged $500 million in reconstruction funds and last week dispatched engineering teams and heavy equipment to prepare for reconstruction.

The message? In Gaza, Egypt is here to stay.

“Gaza is the border region and an issue of national security, but it is also an area that has had no Arab diplomatic presence” because the enclave is ruled by the radical Islamist group Hamas, says an Arab diplomat familiar with Egypt’s role in Gaza. “It is a quick way for Egypt to become indispensable in regional politics with little cost.”

You scratch my back ...

Cairo is now selling itself as essential to stability in a region the Biden administration has less time for nowadays, promoting a Middle East in its own image: strong state governments, led by stable and predictable actors who will prevent regional competition from destabilizing their neighbors.

“Pursuing centrism, moderation and stability creates a huge common ground for Americans and Egyptians to work together,” suggests Mr. Fahmy.

Cairo’s success in Gaza has earned Egypt diplomatic capital that it intends to spend.

Hazem Ahmed/Reuters

Libya's Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh welcomes his Egyptian counterpart Mustafa Madbouly in Tripoli, Libya, April 20, 2021.

One immediate area of common concern is Libya, Egypt’s neighbor to the west, where a government of national unity recently formed with Cairo’s blessing is struggling to exert control over vast swaths of territory.

Egypt is hoping for greater American support for that government’s key goals: the departure of foreign mercenaries, the reopening of coastal roads that link the country, and the unification of rival military forces.

Cairo is also urging Washington to put more pressure on Ethiopia to find agreement with its neighbors on how it will operate a new dam on the river Nile that is nearing completion. The dam will give Ethiopia control over 80% of Egypt’s water supply.

As part of its flurry of diplomacy ahead of a July dam-filling date, Egypt has rallied downstream Nile countries in recent weeks, and has cemented a unified front with neighbor Sudan.

On Tuesday, Egypt gathered Arab foreign ministers to coordinate their response in a summit in Doha and issued a joint call for U.N. Security Council intervention.

Cairo is also looking to extend its mediator role to Syria, where a decade of civil war and harsh U.S.-led sanctions has failed to oust or reform Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Egypt is quietly making the case in Washington and elsewhere that Mr. Assad’s military regime, as the only viable actor on the ground, must be reintegrated into the regional fold, and is offering to mediate between Damascus and Western governments, Arab diplomats say.

Egypt is also channeling its clout to support the Iraqi government through a trilateral alliance including Jordan, in the hope that economic cooperation and support will help Baghdad assert itself over Iranian-backed militias.

After a decade in abeyance, Egypt seems anxious to flex its international muscles more visibly.

“We extend over two continents. We are home to one-fourth of the Arab world,” says Mr. Fahmy, the former minister. “Anyone dealing with or through the Middle East will bump into the Egyptians one way or the other.”

Ng Han Guan/AP/File

Security personnel gather near the entrance of the Wuhan Institute of Virology during a visit by a team from the World Health Organization in Wuhan in China's Hubei province, Feb. 3, 2021.

Although many scientists still lean toward the hypothesis that the coronavirus was transmitted from bats to humans in nature, likely through an intermediary animal, an increasing number say the lab leak hypothesis merits further examination.

What is the lab leak hypothesis? 

The main one under discussion posits that the pandemic began with an accidental leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), where scientists were studying new coronaviruses about 9 miles from the wet market that China deemed ground zero of the pandemic. 

No definitive proof has emerged and key questions remain unanswered. But the basic idea is that an infected lab worker or improper disposal of animals or materials used in experiments could have spread the disease to the general population. 

Why was it widely dismissed early on?

There was much skepticism when on Jan. 30, 2020, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas questioned China’s version of events. He argued that China had lied about the source of COVID-19, citing a study from The Lancet that showed 14 of the 41 earliest known people diagnosed had had no contact with the wet market. Some of his argument hinged on an incorrect assumption that “patient zero” had been identified, but his conclusion is plausible. A China hawk, he criticized Beijing’s “deceit” and urged investigation into whether the WIV had played a role. 

Amid concerns about rampant misinformation and disinformation, many media outlets dismissed Senator Cotton’s views as conspiracy theories. Some outlets have recently walked back that characterization amid criticism for being too quick to dismiss the lab leak hypothesis. Critics say that was driven in part by a reflexive rejection of everything then-President Donald Trump claimed about the virus rather than rigorously examining the available evidence. Defenders say the distrust was valid, given Mr. Trump’s many false statements, and cite concerns that his blaming of China was stirring anti-Asian discrimination and violence.

On March 7, 2020, a group of scientists wrote that they “strongly condemn[ed] conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin” and affirmed support for their Chinese colleagues with a statement in The Lancet. It later emerged that the letter was spearheaded by Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, who had declared no competing interests despite working with the WIV’s Dr. Zhengli Shi on a U.S.-funded grant researching coronaviruses. A March 17 letter by another group published in Nature Medicine further solidified the appearance of a scientific consensus against the lab leak hypothesis.  

Has new evidence come to light? 

An investigation organized by the World Health Organization deemed the natural origin hypothesis “likely to very likely” in a March 30, 2021, report, while deeming a lab leak hypothesis “extremely unlikely.” U.S. officials and others criticized China’s influence over the investigation.

Recent media reports have added to the drumbeat for answers. They highlighted concerns around Dr. Shi’s work modifying coronaviruses to examine their infectiousness to humans and revealed a heated debate within the U.S. government that thwarted investigation of the lab leak theory. In addition, reports revealed intelligence assessments that three WIV employees sought hospital care in November 2019 for flu-like symptoms, though those cases haven’t been linked to COVID-19 specifically. Dr. Shi, who directs the WIV’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, rejects claims that her lab was studying the virus that led to the pandemic and says no WIV researchers have gotten COVID-19.

Some are losing hope that they will ever get a definitive answer. China and the WHO have not yet identified how the virus passed from bats to humans. And China has come under fire for not providing hospital and lab records that could disprove the lab leak hypothesis. 

What are the next steps?

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, President Joe Biden, and many top U.S. officials including Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as a group of 18 scientists, have said the lab leak hypothesis merits further investigation. Dr. Fauci and others maintain a natural origin is more likely.

President Biden has requested a review of all relevant U.S. intelligence by late August. Republican members of Congress are calling for a full investigation and pressing government agencies to provide more data, including federal grant documents related to Dr. Shi’s work. And Group of Seven leaders have urged the WHO to launch its Phase 2 investigation of COVID-19’s origins.

When Sharif Muhammad had children, it changed him as an artist. 

Mr. Muhammad, who has taught technology at Boston Day and Evening Academy for almost 20 years, only started painting in 2011. When he enrolled in a weekend oil-painting class, he says the creative connection was so immediate that once he started, he couldn’t stop. Initially, he tried his hand at “random things,” from landscapes to still-life compositions. But when he had his first of two children, he realized they’d inherit his artwork someday. It made him focus on what he most wanted to express as an artist. So he started creating stylized portraits of people that his kids could take pride in.

“I wanted people of color to be seen and to feel valued,” says Mr. Muhammad, sitting in a Boston ice cream parlor that is displaying his artwork. “Just to know that somebody thinks they’re beautiful ... and that they’re worthy of being hung on the wall.”

A decade since that first paintbrush stroke, Mr. Muhammad’s work is in high demand. Buyers have snapped up all his original oil canvases. A protest painting recently adorned the cover of Art New England magazine. His greatest success to date is a line of playing cards featuring Black figures – rather than the standard white faces – for the kings, queens, and jokers. The predominant quality of his work is uplift, but it’s mindful, too, of the protest he’s been feeling over the past year.

“So much of his work is about joy and it’s about hope. But it also tells the truth,” says Rita Fucillo, associate publisher of Art New England magazine. “He does it in a very contemplative and very provocative way.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Artist Sharif Muhammad designed a deck of cards with Black faces for the joker, queen, and king. The ace is a Black Power fist.

Putting art in people’s hands

For years, Mr. Muhammad’s oil paintings of people of color were mostly purchased by white people. Mindful that his family hadn’t been able to afford art, Mr. Muhammad decided to broaden his clientele by creating art on an iPad and making it available as prints. Displaying his artwork in an ice cream parlor reflects that democratic approach.

The exhibition at J.P. Licks in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood also reveals Mr. Muhammad’s stylistic range. Thanks to the paintings’ almost neon-intensity primary colors, the parlor walls pop like a Sherwin-Williams showroom. In one portrait, a woman grins in bliss as a breeze tousles her cursive curls. In another section, a mixed martial arts fighter with superhero arms bellows in victory. Nearby, a Black ballerina – partly modeled with the face of Mr. Muhammad’s daughter – sits to adjust her shoes. The artist had to use a reference photo of a white ballet dancer because photos of young Black ballerinas were hard to come by.

“There is Black art out there, but there’s not much like mine,” says Mr. Muhammad, pausing between scoops of cake-frosting flavored ice cream. “I don’t think it’s as vibrant. [My] themes are Black beauty. Black excellence. Black brilliance. The Black struggle. I want to capture the whole range of the Black experience in America.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

“The Dream” (center) features the profile of a man with a dove perched on his head. “Peace upon Black bodies is basically the message,” says artist Sharif Muhammad, who has recently focused his artistic gaze on the racial tumult in the country.

When Mr. Muhammad played Go Fish with his children, he noticed that the deck of cards was stacked with Anglo-Saxon kings, queens, jokers dressed in medieval garb. So the artist created a bespoke deck for his kids. His Black royals look more like everyday people but with crowns. His joker is a woman in a rainbow coat and Jackie O-style square sunglasses. The ace in the pack is a Black Power fist.

He ordered six-packs of cards for family and friends. When he showcased his creation with a video on Facebook, his brother called him and said, “You need to order a thousand of those right now.” Initially, though, Mr. Muhammad ordered 100 packs. They quickly sold out. As did the next 100 and the one after. His latest order, manufactured in China, was for 2,500. 

Portraits of protests and dreams

Since last summer, Mr. Muhammad has focused his artistic gaze on the racial tumult in the country. One portrait, “The Dream,” features a photo-realistic side profile of a man with a dove perched on his head.

“Peace upon Black bodies is basically the message,” he says. “The dream is we can walk around and not be brutalized by anybody – by our own people and by the police.”

Art New England

Boston artist Sharif Muhammad's painting “Black Liberty” ran on the cover of this year‘s January/February edition of Art New England.

“Black Liberty” depicts an American flag furling around the eyes and neck of a Black woman. It was featured on the cover of Art New England magazine.

“It was the easiest cover decision that we have ever made on behalf of the magazine in the 12 or 13 years that we’ve owned it,” says Ms. Fucillo. “We knew it said what we wanted it to say in this moment.” 

Yet Mr. Muhammad says his natural default is to depict the sense of wonder and innocence that his children inspire in him. After he’s tucked his children into their beds, that’s often when he’s most inspired to doodle on his iPad.

“The goal is for our kids to grow up in a world where they don’t need to worry about representation,” he says. “I want them to be able to walk into J.P. Licks and this is normalized, like, ‘Oh yeah, of course there’s Black art on the walls. Why is that unusual?’ It’s the same with playing cards. It’s the same with everything.”

“On Juneteenth” is a perfectly quilted work of American history framed by the stories of Black Americans in Texas. Through a mix of memoir, analysis, and seldom-shared stories, historian and Harvard law professor Annette Gordon-Reed stitches a clear image of the economic and political reality of slavery in the Lone Star State. She emphasizes the importance of Juneteenth – the anniversary of June 19, 1865 – the day that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they were emancipated.   

I have admired Gordon-Reed’s work since I read her pivotal and impeccably researched book “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family,” which won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. I thought I knew about Juneteenth until I read her latest book, which provides important historical context. So many contemporary celebrations of Juneteenth offer no real connection to the holiday’s roots. Gordon-Reed not only bridges that gap but adds a sense of urgency as she dives deeply into her own life – the story of a Black girl growing up in Texas.

Gordon-Reed discusses the actual events of that June day in 1865, when a Union officer came to Galveston to announce that slavery was over, at the end of her book. She notes that Juneteenth occurred more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but months before the ratification of the 13th Amendment. And she also records the cost of that freedom. Black Texans paid a high price at the time, enduring whippings and riots; in many ways, they are still paying today. As Gordon-Reed explains, those direct and relentless attacks continued after emancipation in the forms of segregation, Jim Crow laws, and other deeply embedded forms of racism.

Gordon-Reed can attest to this from personal experience. She was raised under that shadow of racism. As she infuses memoir into her story, she effectively conveys that white supremacy and hatred are real – not some imaginary, academic construct. Before she researched it, she lived it. “The image of Texas,” she writes, “has a gender and a race: ‘Texas is a White man.’” 

Liveright

“On Juneteenth” by Annette Gordon-Reed, Liveright, 144 pp.

Her book functions as a clear portrait of the diversity and centuries-old history of Texas, which would have been powerful enough on its own. But the addition of her own narrative brings the text to life. She describes the difficulty of integration and assimilation into white culture that she experienced as a child when her parents enrolled her in an all-white school. She faced even more difficulties as she navigated her return to her Black neighborhood and interactions with other children of color. 

Gordon-Reed also delves into the topic of historical revisionism with a discussion of the story of Cynthia Ann Parker, a staple of Texas state history curricula. As a child, Parker was kidnapped from her white family and adopted by members of the Comanche; eventually, as an adult, she was recaptured by Texas Rangers and became an icon of settler culture. But Gordon-Reed dissects the story, picking apart popular narratives in pursuit of a truer understanding – much in the way she did with Sally Hemings and President Thomas Jefferson in “The Hemingses of Monticello.” This discussion of revisionism is particularly timely; the governor of Texas signed a law this week that bans books and curriculum that address racism and white supremacy, as well as limits teachers’ ability to discuss both those topics and current events. 

Gordon-Reed is a master researcher and a magnificent storyteller, and she avoids the use of heavy historical terminology. By sharing her experiences and those of her family, she shows the cost exacted by unjust systems. Yet she clearly feels a deep love for her home state. Her personal experience – that of a Black woman who loves Texas in spite of its checkered past – is the perfect gateway into this complex narrative. 

Reuters

Switzerland's Yann Sommer reacts after Italy scored a goal which was later disallowed June 16.

Soccer, or football to those outside the United States, is the world’s most popular sport. In 2018, when its top tournament, the FIFA World Cup, was last held, some 3.5 billion people, about half the world’s population, tuned in to view the games. The average single World Cup match had 191 million fans glued to their TVs. (In contrast, the highest-rated Super Bowl ever, the 2015 game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, drew about 114 million viewers.)

That popularity extends to individual players, too. Eight of the 10 most followed athletes on Instagram are soccer players, the only exceptions being U.S. professional basketball player LeBron James and Indian cricketer Virat Kohli. The No. 1 athlete on Instagram, with some 278 million followers, is Portuguese superstar soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo.

Mr. Ronaldo is leading Portugal’s entry into the Union of European Football Associations’ long-awaited Euro 2020 tournament. Delayed from last year because of the pandemic, the event retains 2020 in its title, perhaps to save rebranding it in fans’ minds, and more likely because it would mean throwing out piles of swag with Euro 2020 that had already been manufactured. Two dozen star-studded European teams are competing in matches in 11 cities, with the finale set for England’s Wembley Stadium in London July 11.

The big event was supposed to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Euro championships, begun in 1960. It was also to signal a return to normalcy after months of pandemic and empty stadiums. Instead, Euro 2020 is seen now as a hoped-for diversion from that lingering challenge. Most stadiums will allow fans to fill only about 25% of their seats. Wembley will require fans to show they have been vaccinated or provide proof of a negative lateral flow COVID-19 test taken within the previous 48 hours. [Correction: An earlier version of this editorial misstated the requirement for fans.] The players, coaches, and referees will be kept isolated as much as possible when off the field, while being given some 24,000 COVID-19 tests.

Euro 2020 is also being watched with an eye on Japan’s Summer Olympics, which open July 23. What might the Olympics learn from Euro’s successes or failures?

The matches “will not change the outcome of the pandemic,” Daniel Koch, a health adviser to its organizers, told Britain’s Financial Times. But they could ease the stress of the pandemic if it makes people happier, he said. And as usual, Euro 2020 has the high goal of promoting goodwill and solidarity among European nations.

At the level of this championship, soccer is also an art form, full of strategy and athleticism of the highest degree. Its compelling action provides a welcome break from the cares of the world. And it couldn’t come at a better time.