TEXAS: AN AMERICAN HISTORY

2:30 pm - 3:15 pm
| Location of Session: Hawn Holt Family Auditorium
Adult Sessions

Start of Signing: 3:30 pm
| Signing Location: Festival Marketplace

My Schedule

About the Event

When Americans turn on their laptops, play video games, go to church, eat TexMex, shope for groceries, listen to music, or watch football, they are (knowingly or not) paying tribute to Texas. Tracing profound and surprising stories, historian Benjamin Heber Johnson shines a new light on the surprising influence of the Lone Star State in Texas: An American History.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Author

Benjamin Heber Johnson

Benjamin Heber Johnson is Professor in the History Department and School of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of numerous works on the United States–Mexico border and environmental history, including Revolution in Texas: How a Forgotten Rebellion and Its Bloody Suppression Turned Mexicans into Americans; Bordertown: The Odyssey of an American Place; and Escaping the Dark, Gray City: Fear and Hope in Progressive Era Conservation.

He is also a member of Refusing to Forget, a public history project devoted to commemorating the legacies of the border violence of the 1910s, which has received awards from the Western History Association, the American Historical Association, and the Organization of American Historians.

Johnson has served as co-editor of the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, currently co-edits the Journal of Texas History and the David J. Weber Series in New Borderlands History at the University of North Carolina Press. Raised in Houston, he is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. His new book is Texas: An American History.

Moderator

Deborah Omowale Jarmon

A retired civil servant with a 27 year career in the world of air traffic control, Deborah relocated to San Antonio to be a “close-by” grandmother teaching them the importance of their legacy. Opening a bed and breakfast in the King William area of San Antonio, named for the family matriarch, “Eva’s Escape at the Gardenia Inn” immersed her family in Deborah’s personal mission of love and service for family and community. Upon her family relocating to Atlanta, Deborah realized the commitment of the bed and breakfast would prevent her from spending that quality time with those grandbabies. Selling the property, Deborah turned to community advocacy with a mission to connect the African American community to each other, opportunities, and our history. Her work as the CEO/Director of the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum, a board member of Visit San Antonio along with serving on the City of San Antonio’s Airport Advisory Commission provides an opportunity to carry out her personal mission.