Dorothea Lange/Getty; Smith Collection/Gado/Getty; Santi Visalli/Getty; Thomas McGovern/Getty
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Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.In the leadup to the semiquincentennial, President Donald Trump has waged a war on topics he deems “divisive,”
from DEI to critical race theory. As a reporter and fact-checker, I’ve
examined this attack on our history closely. I’ve interviewed historians
about how our past shapes our current moment, observed the spectacles
put on by administration, and chronicled an organization’s fight to
preserve local historic memorials.
Through this work I’ve realized how much
my own personal relationship to patriotism and history has evolved. As a
kid in school, learning about the disproportionate amount of violence
marginalized people faced throughout history made me pessimistic about
the future. It was bizarre to read textbooks that minimized and
dehumanized those moments of oppression along with the moments of
achievement by anyone who wasn’t a white man. In American history
marginalized people’s stories are often asides or relegated to
stereotypes— if mentioned at all. Over time I became almost desensitized
by the erasure as a way to focus on the ever-changing present moment.
In September, I spoke to former Alabama poet laureate Ashley M. Jones about her book, Lullaby for the Grieving,
where she described “political grief”—the feeling of “being in a place
which never wanted you to be human and reminds you every day that it
still doesn’t consider you a human.” I realized that my political grief
created a skepticism about how American history is told and those who
chose to celebrate it at all.
Though I was skeptical, speaking with
historians, nonprofit organizers, and protestors about America’s 250th
birthday has made it clear to me that “celebrating” American history
doesn’t have to mean ignoring historical moments that the Trump administration says
“undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting
its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.”
Telling an honest and complete history that actually acknowledges the
harm marginalized people endured in this country helps us reckon with
what we’ve been through in the nation, and what we’d like to see in the
next 250 years.
Culling American history also just leaves
gaping holes in the American story that make it unintelligible. I keep
returning to one of the administration’s most literal displays of this
erasure: an animated show projected onto the Washington Monument itself
which tells the American story from the Declaration of Independence to
space exploration, while blatantly omitting historic systemic oppression
like the expulsion of Native Americans or marginalized people’s
contributions to the nation, like the three Black women who were
essential to the space race.
The alternative to these revisionist
displays is to accept that history is more complex and ambiguous than we
often like to see it. As historian and American Association for State
and Local History senior staff member John Garrison Marks noted during our conversation in April,
when we use American history as a tool to win political and cultural
fights, that argument over the past prevents us from seeing the future.
Marks hoped that this anniversary would be an opportunity to bring
people together and have complex conversations, an idea I heard echoed
by many others.
Kitcki Carroll, the United South and
Eastern Tribes executive director and I connected in April to talk about
how to honor Native American perspectives during this anniversary, and
he told me that for many Indigenous people, the semiquincentennial and
events surrounding it are an opportunity to “course correct and make
sure that for the next 250 years we’re not dealing with the same
shortcoming and failures.”
While historians and community leaders
have reminded me of the importance of keeping our eyes on the past for
our future, I’ve been inspired by those who continue to fight for
preservation as a link between the two. In response to Trump’s 2025 executive order
to get rid of materials that “inappropriately disparage Americans past
or living,” a group of librarians, public historians, and data experts
created Save Our Signs.
Through this online archive, people take pictures of National Park
signage and inform others of ones that have been removed. There’s also a
map that highlights materials that were flagged for removal from leaked NPS Data.
This effort has created a database of over 15,000 photos from 422
sites, an archive of material that is otherwise at risk of
disappearing.
I got to see resistance to the
administration’s erasure in person, too, when the Philadelphia
organization, Avenging the Ancestors Coalition fought for the
reinstallation of the President’s House slavery exhibit they helped get
installed 15 years ago. During one of the rallies, Hannah Gann, a high
school African American history teacher, said when her students heard
the memorial was torn down, they were “upset that their real history was
being erased and a huge part of our city’s history was being taken away
and covered up.”
Though we often picture history as a
stagnant thing that can be engraved on plaques, behind plexiglass in
museums, or written in textbooks, really our story belongs to all of us,
and there are numerous ways to preserve it. In art and literature, I’ve
talked to creatives and academics like Jones, Carmen Emmi, Victoria
Chang, Isaac Butler, and Kimberlé Crenshaw who’ve emphasized the
importance of personal histories to the larger historical canon. Their
art highlights lesser known events, like the 1885 expulsion of Chinese
Americans from Eureka, California or overpolicing and history of entrapment of queer people.
These artists’ perspective on the American story also adds personal
weight to the historical moments the public is already familiar with,
like censorship during the AIDS crisis or the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
These sorts of personal stories are a
reminder of the inherent humanity in history that sometimes gets lost in
the big picture of it, and show how honoring a diversity of
perspectives helps connect us back to it. Diversity isn’t just about
race or ethnicity, for many it’s about where they’re from. As a former
resident of Alabama, when I first learned about the 250th I thought I’d
be more of a spectator to the celebration happening in DC. Yet, I
realized the semiquincentennial isn’t just about the founding, and
although Alabama has its share of shortcomings, it has a complex culture
and history, from its pivotal role in the Civil Rights movement to
being home to the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio where legends like Aretha
Franklin and the Rolling Stones recorded hit songs.
It’s cliche to say that “those who don’t
remember history are doomed to repeat it,” but the more reporting I’ve
done, the more I’ve found it to be true. San Francisco State University
history professor Marc Robert Stein told me that history isn’t
cyclical—it has patterns. Often, in interviews with historians, I ask
them where they think our society stands and where they think we’re
headed, and usually they start by pointing out the patterns they’ve seen
over time, highlighting how the past can’t be removed from our present
or future.
Despite what’s happening on the National
Mall, in many ways, the necessary conversations about how we mend our
relationship with history and move forward are happening. To me, the
hope of this semiquincentennial is that more people are listening.
