BETHLEHEM, PA – Acclaimed historian, author, and Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University, Annette Gordon-Reed, will be the keynote speaker for Northampton Community College’s (NCC) Annual Humanities Program this upcoming April 2026. The live event will take place on April 14, 2026, at 7 p.m. The event is free and is open to the public. To reserve tickets, visit https://Northampton.edu/Keynote2026.
NCC’s Annual Humanities Theme for 2025-2026, “We the People: Reflecting Back, Building Forward,” honors the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This program builds upon NCC’s original designation by the National Endowment for the Humanities as a “We the People” institution, a distinction that placed our College among an elite group committed to strengthening the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture.
Annette Gordon-Reed has won sixteen book prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2009. For her work, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, she’s been awarded the National Book Award in 2008; the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the George Washington Book Prize in 2009.
In addition to articles, essays, and reviews, her other works include Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy; Race on Trial: Law and Justice in American History; with Peter S. Onuf, Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination; On Juneteenth. Her newest book, Jefferson on Race: A Reader, will be forthcoming from Princeton University Press in March 2026.
Gordon-Reed was the Vyvyan Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History at the University of Oxford (Queens College) 2014-2015 and was the 2018-2019 President of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. She is the current President of the Ames Foundation. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Humanities, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the National Humanities Medal.
Gordon-Reed’s groundbreaking work—exploring history and the complexities of the American experience—invites us to reflect on our shared past. Her work continues to shape how we understand American history, identity, and democracy.
Event Detail Summary:
Date: April 14, 2026
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: Northampton Community College | 3835 Green Pond Rd. Bethlehem, PA 18020
Admission: Free; Open to the public
Tickets: Reserve at northampton.edu/Keynote2026
About Northampton Community College
With an enduring commitment to the regional communities it serves and a focus on student success, Northampton Community College is an educational institution of extraordinary distinction, earning accolades at the state and national levels for innovative programs, outstanding faculty, and impressive student achievements. It counts among its successful alumni a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner and an Academy Award winning director, as well as a host of CEOs, presidents, and leaders of business and industry. Today, Northampton Community College has locations in Bethlehem, Southside Bethlehem, and Monroe County, serving 30,000 students annually from 53 counties, 42 countries, and 25 states. For more information or to apply, please visit northampton.edu. Follow NCC on LinkedIn, Instagram @NorthamptonCommCollege, TikTok @NorthamptonCC, and Facebook.
