Caught Between Two Extreme Views of American History

The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. (Source: Wikipedia)

Next Sunday I head to Washington, D.C. for a five-day teacher workshop on the history of Reconstruction and Civil War memory at Ford’s Theatre. Of all the teacher workshops that I help out with, this is one of my favorites. It’s an opportunity to work with teachers from around the country on some of the most complex and contentious American history at places like Arlington National Cemetery, Howard University, and the U.S. Capitol Building.

Five days in D.C. is also a chance for me to recharge my batteries and reconnect with the American experiment. I wake up very early each morning to make plenty of time for a run (now more like a brisk walk/run) on the National Mall and other sites. I largely feel at home in D.C.’s evolving monument/memorial landscape. In these early morning hours (largely alone) I feel connected to something larger than myself in the present and stretching back into the distant past.

This year will be my first time back since the outbreak of COVID and the January 6 insurrection.

It is with this in mind that I read historian Johann Neem’s thoughtful essay in The Hedgehog Review. I share Neem’s concern about the fracturing of our country and what this means for the possibility of a shared or “useful” understanding of our collective past. I have written extensively about the vilification of history educators by Republicans and their conservative allies over the past few years, as well as their attempts to legislate the teaching of American history in ways that are little more than politically self serving.

But if conservatives are willing to legislate what they view as the truth of the founding of the United States, we are also hearing from folks on the left who have embraced their own foundational truths about our history.

According to this extreme revisionist—and what I call post-American—perspective, we need an entirely new accounting of the past, not because the history we currently teach is incomplete but because all of American history is a lie. As post-Americans see it, this nation was founded on racism and is defined by racism. It is not just that America has a long history of racism. It is that America exists for, and because of, racism. It is a country for white people. White supremacy is its defining feature. The story of America was “stamped from the beginning,” in historian and activist Ibram X. Kendi’s words.

The post-American perspective does not simply provide a new interpretation of American history. The problem that it claims to address is not the kind that can be solved by adding greater complexity or a fuller picture of race-based exploitation to the story. At the base of its historiographical ambitions is a stunning assertion: For those who seek social justice, American history does not belong to them and they do not belong to it. There is, in short, no usable past. In that spirit, an Illinois state legislator called for “the abolishment of history classes” in the state’s public schools because the course materials “lead to white privilege and a racist society.”

I think it is important, as does Neem, to recognize that most Americans do not identify with either of these extreme positions. A majority of Americans, across the political spectrum, want their children to be challenged in their American history classes. That means learning a history that includes exposure to the tough questions about the history and legacy of slavery and legalized discrimination. It also means learning the history of racial and ethnic minorities.

It seems that most Americans desire more and better history to be taught to their children.

The polls suggest, however, that most Americans do not believe that the entire narrative structure needs to be discarded and rewritten.

We are living through a time, however, when we cannot take our shared identity—and therefore our shared stories—for granted. Given the urgent demands for social justice, this may be a moment when it is necessary to break myth rather than sustain it. That, at least, is what many post-Americans would argue. They claim that the mainstream American story hides more than it reveals. The existing narrative, in the lexicon of today, whitewashes America’s past. Instead, that past must be placed in a new pattern that will be the basis for a new mythistory, one that portrays the period from European settlement to today as primarily about white racism and oppression, and that imagines a post-American tomorrow liberated from that past. But like all mythistories, the post-American story picks and chooses which facts to emphasize and how to interpret them based on what, from its perspective, matters most.

That last point is important. We need to recognize that a fundamental rewriting of the American narrative will very likely result in a new set of distortions about our collective past.

I am concerned about what this debate about American history and history education means for our teachers. They are increasingly being backed into a corner and forced to make a choice between a naive traditional narrative of American history and this “post-American” vision. Both interpretations attempt to reduce American history down to some kind of essential truth and both are equally dangerous.

It’s going to be interesting to see the extent to which this debate has impacted the teachers that I will meet next Sunday. I suspect that most, if not all, are simply looking to deepen their understanding of Reconstruction, are trying to do their jobs as best they can and are not pushing an ideological agenda one way or the other.

One of the unintended consequences of spending five days exploring American history and memory with educators from all walks of life is that you come to appreciate just how much you have in common.