Federal employees of the National Park Service began dismantling educational displays at the President’s House last week in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The panels illustrated and relayed the history of slavery in the United States, a history that is presently under national attack. Within the first few months of his second administration, President Trump—alongside Interior Secretary Doug Burgum—ordered the review and potential removal of displays at national parks that “inappropriately disparage” the U.S.
This attempt at whitewashing U.S. history and sanctifying its founders has now targeted the President’s House, a memorial to the nine slaves who lived with George Washington while he used the house as his official residence. This site didn’t pass Trump’s smell test. Heaven forbid we acknowledge that those who established the United States of America weren’t the “heroes” he and others who mistake nationalism for patriotism want them to be perceived as.
Two things can be true at once: America’s early leadership could have stood for principles that hold merit today, and they could have done things that we today recognize as horrific. Whether we villainize or deify these individuals, they existed, as did the people they hurt. No amount of censorship can change that.
I’m appalled that Black history is being brazenly “disappeared,” so close to Black History Month at that, all because some people are uncomfortable with ugly truths. If white Americans feel conflicted when they learn about Black hardship, it’s because they know those conditions were unfair. That discomfort is important because it can lead to something this nation needs a little more of right now: empathy.
Humanizing History
Mrs. Steele, my fourth-grade teacher, was the first to actually teach me about slavery as our public-school education integrated social studies into our elementary curriculum. From kindergarten to third grade, we primarily learned math and language skills, with some science thrown in. In 2005, though, Mrs. Steele, a Black woman, taught my class that white Americans used to own Black Americans. I looked around the room at my Black classmates, and I recall the serious, somber expressions on their faces.
Still, my education on Black history was relatively limited. The names of the most famous civil-rights leaders echoed in our textbooks year after year, but it wasn’t until my sophomore year of college that I delved further into this section of American history that our leadership now finds so offensive. For Dr. Kathryn Anthony’s oral-communication class at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, we studied speeches made from the Civil Rights Movement, and we presented on incidents that played a role in racial progress.
My assignment focused on the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, activists who were helping Black Mississippians register to vote as part of the Freedom Summer campaign in June 1964. The Ku Klux Klan abducted and fatally shot the trio in Neshoba County, Mississippi. Klansmen had beaten Chaney, a Black man, prior to his death. The other two victims were white Jewish men from New York.
Telling their story and relaying the details of their abduction and final moments gave a new weight to the suffering that civil-rights workers underwent, especially considering the fact that they were barely older than I was at the time of my report when they died. The bravery required to uphold their principles was more than I could imagine mustering myself. I would hate for their sacrifice to become another target in this crusade against “anti-American” history.
Moving Targets
What’s next? Is the National Constitution Center, also in Philadelphia, going to receive an order to remove its exhibit on the 13th Amendment, which abolished and outlawed slavery? I worry that part of the Constitution itself is going to become too “problematic” for those who only want to hear American citizens sing our nation’s praises.
I’m sorry, but I don’t worship any country, let alone one that dismisses or attacks a good portion of its population for not falling in line as it literally rips history off walls.
We cannot pretend that our country is spotless. Even if the truth is inconvenient to a narrative espousing American “greatness,” Black history matters. Regardless of how uncomfortable some people feel when they learn of the callousness of their ancestors, Black history matters. No matter how many educational displays are removed from public view, Black history will always matter, and it will never disappear.
This MFP Voices opinion essay reflects the personal opinion of its author(s). The column does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.
