Over the past few months, I have started this column multiple times due to frequent events, announcements, and actions that have prompted me to begin and then cease writing. We are once again at a critical juncture in American society.

In March, the current president issued an executive order that asserts, with no evidence, that Americans have witnessed over the past few years a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite America’s history, supplanting “objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.”

For me, the order evoked an observation by W. E. B. Du Bois in his seminal 1935 work, Black Reconstruction. Du Bois noted that in the study of history, we are repeatedly confronted with the notion that “the concept of evil must be forgotten, distorted, or overlooked.” 

As Du Bois stated, “We must disregard the fact that George Washington was a slave owner, or that Thomas Jefferson had mulatto children, or that Alexander Hamilton had Negro ancestry,” and simply recall the aspects we deem praiseworthy and inspiring.

Since the signing of the order we have witnessed this play out on the national stage with edits made to government webpages, including among others, those of the National Park Service and the Pentagon. These edits included the removal of images and contextual information provided for visitors to learn and be informed.

In our local and regional context, we are expected to overlook the fact that Kansas is one of the five cases in Brown v. Board because educational segregation existed in the Free State.

We are to forget that Langston Hughes, the great poet, novelist and social critic, wrote his first novel, Not Without Laughter, based on his life in segregated Lawrence, Kansas.

We are to ignore the fact that these things occurred in a state that did not have slavery and was not part of the Confederacy.

We are supposed to forget because some believe that recounting or sharing these objective facts could potentially undermine America’s “remarkable achievements” by portraying certain aspects of its history in a negative light.

We are encouraged to ignore that the American form of democracy has not always been available to all, despite the progress the nation has made. 

American democracy is still a work in progress, an idea that has not lived up to its ideal.

In 2026, the United States will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. This occasion presents an opportunity to remember the principles enshrined in that document, particularly the notion that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights …”

However, it is essential to recognize that Jefferson, the author of this document, held 83 people as slaves as the owner of his Monticello plantation when he toiled over the exact words to use. Furthermore, the powerful language employed in the Declaration of Independence was not unique to Jefferson; it was adopted by many during the Enlightenment period, including a group of enslaved men who petitioned for freedom to the Massachusetts legislature three years before Jefferson inspired a nation with them in 1776.

Acknowledging these historical facts does not constitute “rewriting history” or “fostering a sense of national shame.” Rather, it enables us to gain a deeper understanding of our past, which does have imperfections. We are not an unblemished nation.

It is paramount to recognize that America, like all nations, is not without flaws. Despite the rhetoric that transcends the current administration, America has consistently grappled with tensions surrounding its democratic system. Persistent concerns have been, among other things, the delineation of inclusion and exclusion, the establishment of limitations, and the authority that governs these realities.

Returning to Langston Hughes as a suitable exploration of these contradictions is beneficial. Hughes frequently exposed and grappled with the limitations and possibilities of American democracy and his poem, “I, Too” which appeared in 1926 as part of his first poetry collection, The Weary Blues, is a place to see this play out.

I, Too

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me;
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed, —

I, too, am America.

— Langston Hughes

In this poem, Hughes offers a profound perspective on the true essence of the democratic project. This view is not expressed in Jefferson’s eloquent yet incomplete democratic arguments in the Declaration of Independence nor in another often-quoted source that people hold up as a place to understand the essence of American democracy, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

When we are exposed to Hughes and the historical and experiential knowledge he and others impart, we gain a unique perspective on democracy, history, and the American experience. This is not a “distorted narrative driven by ideology,” but rather a closer approximation to the “truth.”

There is not one American experience!

As Du Bois explained in 1935, the historical philosophy that is being promoted by the current administration and its supporters loses its value as an incentive and example because it is false and, dare I say, an act of “replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology …”

Let us resist the persistent push to limit the narrative of our nation’s past. 

As Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, Baptist minister and the former leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s campaign against racist Birmingham, Alabama, once said: “If you don’t tell it like it was, it can never be as it ought to be.”

More Community Voices:

MORE …