'The People Who Destroyed My History Had Also Destroyed Their Own'
Thanks to Chris Mackowski at Emerging Civil War for taking the time to interview me about Black History Month and the ongoing war on Black history.
I’ve written quite a bit about the latter over the past few months. It’s unfortunate that Chris and I had to spend so much time talking about the many attempts on the part of elected leaders to limit and even ban certain aspects of the Black experience.
As a historian I understand this all too well and for African Americans it is certainly nothing new.
I try to remind myself that every proposal and legislation passed is an admission of defeat. It’s an admission on the part of its authors and supportes that they are incapable of engaging in a discussion of ideas. The fallback position is instead the deployment of power and fear.
I am reminded of a passage in James Baldwin’s book, Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone:
I was discovering what some American blacks must discover: that the people who destroyed my history had also destroyed their own.
This was wonderful - thank you to Chris Mackowski for the interview, great stuff.
Here is our latest hell in Florida - DeSantis’s attack on higher ed: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/999/BillText/Filed/PDF
I grew up in Brandy Station, an hour from Monticello and Mr. Jefferson’s University, and I admired him so much until I read Wiencek’s *Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves*. But Jefferson was right when he said in his *Notes On the State of Virginia* in 1785, “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference!”