Sanitized History

Gettysburg

When Trump says that the removal of Confederate statues is destroying our history, what he means is that it is destroying his view of history, the mostly white, sanitized view of history. What we learn as children, teens, and young adults often stays with us our entire life, even if it is wrong. 

What triggered this post is a very interesting article in The Atlantic titled "What Trump's Generation Learned About the Civil War". I happen to be of that generation too and can attest to the points the article makes. While I did not go to public school in New York or even go to public school in Florida where I lived, the viewpoint and tone of the history books were similar. I went to Catholic schools from kindergarten through high school, 13 years. I'll be honest here, I do not remember specifics of what was taught about the Civil War, but the Confederate States of America (CSA) leaders, politicians, and military officers were not portrayed as bad guys. Grant was no more noble or right than Lee. Reconstruction was evil and the carpetbaggers were the devils. I can not recall any mention of Jim Crow laws. There was ambiguity about what caused the war. Being Catholic schools, they may have been more condemning of the KKK since Catholics were also the Klan's target along with Blacks and Jews.

Col. John S. Mosby, CSA

I've mentioned before that I wrote a high school history term paper about Col. John Mosby, the Grey Ghost, of the CSA. I did significant research at the library in those pre-internet and pre-Google days. I had to go to the main library downtown to do the research. A beautiful but very cramped and musty Carnegie library building. The paper would have been written in late 1963 or early 1964. Amazingly, I still have that paper and reread it. My Mom saved everything. I do mention that Mosby was opposed to slavery and was somewhat torn between the Union and Virginia. Obviously, he chose the CSA. The paper does not go into the rhymes or reasons for the Civil War. It is 10 typed pages plus footnotes and a bibliography of 10 books. Not once do the words "Civil War" appear in the paper. It is mostly a recount of Mosby's exploits along with his Mosby's Rangers. No moral judgment or even expression of my views of the Civil War. I did conclude that Col. Mosby was a brilliant and successful military leader whose efforts prolonged the war. BTW, I got an A on the term paper. Not a foregone result during my academic career.

I suspect that if a high school student today was given the assignment of documenting Mosby or any other CSA military leader, there would be more information and opinion about the Civil War in general.

The article in The Atlantic also points out that the post Civil War history taught in the 1950's and 60's was not critical of whites, except for the Carpetbaggers, during Reconstruction or the Jim Crow years. The KKK was sometimes criticized for their methods but not for their reasons or beliefs. The draconian Jim Crow laws were barely mentioned or completely ignored. Blacks, while technically free and equal, were still considered inferior. Besides the slant of the white point of view, Blacks were mostly ignored completely. According to those history texts, Blacks contributed little or nothing to the nation.

This is what was taught to the white children of the Boomer generation and before, both in the North and the South. It appears that Trump and many others took the "facts", omissions, interpretations, and opinions in those school history books to heart and have clung to those views to this day. I continued to study and read about the Civil War into my adulthood. What started as a pro-CSA and Southern view, has evolved to see what the Civil War and those who seceded from the USA were really about. It was slavery, pure and simple. After the Civil War loss and Reconstruction, it was about doing everything possible to keep the African-American population suppressed. They certainly succeeded in influencing the history textbook authors. 

If you are a Boomer, think back on your American History classes and textbooks. With the perspective of 2017, maybe it is time to review those "facts". 

The current demonstrations and removal of Civil War statues it is not about destroying history, it is about unsanitizing the last 150 years.

wjh