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The 250th anniversary of the official founding of our country is in just a couple weeks, and as usual I have a lot to say about it. Like many, I grew up with the idea that our country was the best, the strongest, the smartest. Over time I learned about the dark parts of history that history book authors tried to erase or minimize, and the illusion was shattered.
And then I join rallies and protests for causes I believe in, and I started to see the strength and the joy that still exists here. I started this blog because I found books about diverse American history: the people whom history tried to erase, and their stories inspire me to keep working to make this country everything I thought it was supposed to be.
A (Very Brief) Diverse History of America
A note before we begin: this is, by necessity, the briefest of brief overviews of American history. There are so many other humans in our country’s history who also deserve to be highlighted, but I can’t mention every person. Additionally, some stories (like this first one) are mentioned not because they are good, but because their stories have been misconstrued to be valiant instead of violent. Part of understanding the tapestry of our country is to recognize that the truth matters more than idealism.
Christopher Columbus
“Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492.” That was something we learned in elementary school, along with how he “discovered America” – which he thought at the time was India – even though the Native American peoples were already on the land and stewarding it. Christopher Columbus was not the brave leader some make him out to be. In fact, the stories of his torturing of people on lands he colonized was so wide-spread that he was forced by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (who sent him on his journey where he “found” the Americas) to stand trial. The findings of the trial were so appalling that they stripped him of his titles and responsibilities.
When people refuse to recognize Columbus Day in October, this is why. It is Indigenous People’s Day. They should be honored, not the man who forced enslavement and, according to a priest who was witness, used sexual exploitation of native people as a reward for his men.
Pilgrims
Fast forward to 1619, when the first ship carrying kidnapped people from Africa landed on the shores of Jamestown, Virginia, to be sold into forced enslavement. A year later, up the coast, a group of colonizers from Europe landed in hopes to start a new life on their own terms, and quickly realized that agriculture in a new terrain did not come easily for them. Their lives were saved by the generosity of a Patuxet native man named Tisquantum. Tisquantum had been kidnapped years earlier by Thomas Hunt, a lieutenant of John Smith, to be sold into slavery in Spain. He escaped, lived for awhile with an English man, and later returned to his home to find that his entire people had been wiped out by an epidemic from earlier European visitors. He was captured by the Wampanoag people and kept under watch because their Chief, Massasoit, didn’t yet trust him. The epidemic that took Tisquantum’s family also weakened the Wampanoag nation, but the neighboring Narragansett nation was still strong. Tisquantum suggested diplomacy between the colonizers and the Wampanoag nation to help protect them from any moves by the Narragansett people.
When the Pilgrims landed and their efforts for planting were left clearly wanting, Tisquantum approached them with another Native man, Samoset. They taught the Pilgrims how to fish and use the fish as both food and fertilizer for planting their corn. Tisquantum eventually lived in Plymouth Plantation as a diplomat, though it is documented he did give false information to both sides to better serve his own interests.
While the Wampanoag nation and the Pilgrims had agreed to a peace treaty in March 1621, that lasted all of about fifty years until negotiations over land exploded into a war between the colonizers and the Wampanoag nation, led by Chief Massasoit’s son Metacomet (aka “King Philip”) in what became known as King Philip’s War.
Personal side note: I am a direct descendent of John and Priscilla Alden from the Mayflower. The true story of the First Thanksgiving is especially important to me, because I recognize that I would not exist without the grace extended by Tisquantum, Samoset, and the Wampanoag nation. Every year for Thanksgiving, I send a donation and a thank you note to the Wampanoag nation, and bring a Native American dish to our family table to honor the people who kept my family alive. Here is the link to donate in case you would like to join me in donating.
Revoluntionary War
After King Philip’s War ended in 1678 with the death of King Philip, the colonizers continued to grow and expand their reach across North America. The colonies followed a variety of charters created either by the English governments, private equity, or cooperation of multiple members from a particular colony, which were all influenced by the particular needs of their areas and their region’s cultures.
As the colonies had largely been left to their own devices while England was otherwise occupied with the French and Indian War, the different groups all started vying for political power. England began to pay attention to them again in the late 1660s, and announced all previous charters were now void and they demanded everyone follow the Dominion of New England, which eliminated the option of self government. They also started imposing taxes in effort to recover from their war, but representatives from the colonies weren’t invited to join the British Parliament. This is the “taxation without representation” that the colonies rebelled against.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that when people who have mostly been left alone suddenly get micro-managed, things get dicey. Eventually this culminated in the Revolutionary War, and the colonies formed the United States of America.
George Washington became the first President of the United States. And while the Declaration of Independence stated that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights – that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” he and many (but not all) so-called “Founding Fathers” enslaved other humans. A woman named Ona Judge, who was enslaved by George’s wife, Martha, escaped their home and lived the rest of her life in freedom, even as the Washingtons never stopped hunting for her.
Civil War
Enslavement continued and was mostly concentrated in the South, and the division of free vs enslaved continued to brew discord as the English began to end the British slave trade in the 1780s. Eventually, as most things do, news of what was happening in England got to America and began to inspire those who were already fighting for the abolition of slavery.
The economic impact of enslavement was such an issue that in 1787 the Constitutional Convention created the “3/5th Compromise,” declaring that for the purposes of representation in government, enslaved Black people counted as 3/5ths of a person. This allowed for greater Southern representation in government without actually recognizing any rights or privileges to the people they enslaved.
In 1852, free man and abolitionist Frederick Douglass delivered a speech called “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” which I would highly encourage everyone to read every Fourth of July.
Up in the North half of America, the people were rapidly expanding and the industrialization of businesses continued to grow. As they spread across the continent, their representatives in Congress fought to keep the new states free – or at least, to keep free states and enslavement states in equal number. This led to the Missouri Compromise in 1820, where Missouri was admitted to the Union as an enslavement state and Maine was admitted as a free state, keeping the tally of “sides” at 12 each. In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that freed man and activist Dred Scott did not have the right to sue anyone in federal court because enslaved people were not legally citizens. The courts also made sure to declare that Congress didn’t have the right to decide or enforce free states vs enslavement states – a ruling which Congress overruled in 1865 with the ratification of the 13th amendment.
Down South, the economy revolved mostly around the production of crops like tobacco, cotton, and sugar – all labor intensive jobs that white enslavers would rather not pay laborers fairly to work. Enslaved Black people were thought of as a commodity, and white enslavers were wealthy. They wanted to continue growing their wealth by expanding into new areas, which included increasing the number of enslaved people they owned. They claimed that each individual state had the right to create their own laws surrounding allowing enslavement or not, and the North refusing to allow additional so-called “slave states” into the Union was impeding the rights of those states. This is where the oft-used argument for “the Civil War was about States Rights” comes from – as my college history professor once asked me: “states rights to do what?”
Even though some people argue that Civil War was not fought over slavery because Abraham Lincoln himself said “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that,” the basis of the war on the Confederate side was very clearly fighting for the legal ability to continue to enslave other humans. In 1861, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stevens gave his Cornerstone speech, where he declared the following:
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea {of the United States’ Constitution declaring equality for everyone}; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition.”
Secession happened in 1861 when the southern slave holding states decided that their right to own people was greater than being part of the Union, and freedom for others was a threat to their wealth. This narrative was accepted even by those who did not personally enslave others – much like poor white people who simp for Elon Musk now.
During this time, Harriet Tubman escaped enslavement, yet traveled back several times to help rescue others. They traveled in the “Underground Railroad,” a connection of people and homes and sometimes literally underground tunnels used to hide people from recapture on their way to the free states. It was fellow Americans who stitched and displayed quilts with patterns that were messages for the people on their way to freedom, to know if the house was a safe place to stay or if they should lay low for awhile.
Henry “Box” Brown mailed himself in a box on a train to the free state of Pennsylvania, where he was greeted by William Still, a free Black man who met the survivors of the Underground Railroad and wrote down all their names and information to help connect them to their family members.
Sarah Emma Edmunds became a master of disguise as a spy for the Union army to get valuable information while posing as a teenage boy Confederate soldier, an enslaved person, and other risky aliases.
Reconstruction
After the war ended in 1865, the people and politicians began to patch the tears in the fabric of the country by passing new laws with more rights for Black people. Robert Smalls, a man who escaped enslavement by stealing a ship, became a Congressman of South Carolina. Many racist Southerners disagreed with this move towards equality, and promptly responded by forming the Ku Klux Klan and passing the Jim Crow laws of segregation. They rewrote history to turn the secessionists into heroes and minimize/erase the role enslavement had in the story.
Note: On June 19, 1865, over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation declared the end of enslavement in the South, the news was delivered to the people in Galveston Texas that they were now free. The annual celebration became known as Juneteenth, which became a federal holiday on June 17, 2021.
Civil Rights Movement
The fight for Civil Rights took a step forward again in 1909 with the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (aka “NAACP”) to defend and protect the rights of African Americans. Among the founders were author W.E.B Du Bois and journalist/suffragette Ida B Wells.
Fighting against Jim Crow laws to become truly free and equal happened slowly and in spurts until the 1950s and 60s, when gifted orator Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came on the scene with a passion for speeches that connected people to a common goal. As his recognition grew, so did the movement (aided by the newfangled technology of television, allowing everyone to see news and speeches quickly), and many activists got to work on their contributions to the goal of equality for all.
Georgia Gilmore baked pies to raise money for the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
A group of activists from several different missions got together to coordinate the March on Washington, led by Bayard Rustin, a gay Black man.
The Little Rock Nine integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1957, and six-year-old Ruby Bridges integrated William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in 1960.
The Freedom Riders boarded buses to integrate bus systems, and groups of people sat at deli counters to peacefully enforce their right to be served the same as any white customer.
I find the Civil Rights Movement to be the most interesting era to study because there are so many people each doing something. No one person did everything, but so many people each doing something, big or small, across the country compounded in a truly inspiring way.
LGBTQ+
Once it was no longer culturally acceptable to be against equality for Black people, the culture war crew found a new villain: the LGBTQ+ community. And again, like the Civil Rights Movement, everyone did something to stand up and fight for equal rights.
Of course, when everyday Americans are getting to experience the rights once reserved for the privileged, the privileged act out to protect their power. The 1950s saw the “Lavender Scare” after President Eisenhower signed an Executive Order banning any member of the LGBTQ+ community from working in the government. Hundreds were laid off, some were outed, and some were investigated even though they were straight because they didn’t fit the elite’s idea of the gender stereotype.
The uprising at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 was the pivotal point for fighting for equal rights for LGBTQ+ people. It was far from the start of political activism for the community, or the first to fight back against police brutality, but it was a long uprising and garnered a lot of media attention. The six-day rebellion was initially sparked by a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a known gay bar owned by the mafia. As police were arresting a woman for being lesbian, allegedly she yelled “do something!” and someone threw a brick at the police car. The national attention from the uprising gave hope to activists that change was coming.
Harvey Milk became one of the first openly gay elected officials when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He worked with Gilbert Baker to create the Pride flag as a way to cultivate unity during events.
Marsha P. Johnson advocated for queer people in New York, and together with Sylvia Rivera supported (and for as long as they could, housed) a group of teens who had either left or been kicked out of their homes for being queer.
Jeanne Manford founded PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) when her son came out to her as gay. PFLAG is still active across the country with hundreds of chapters to provide community and support for LGBTQ+ people.
Still Fighting
As a student of diverse American history, reading the news headlines for the past decade has felt like I’m living in the history books I have been reading.
The Supreme Court rolled back the Voter Rights Act, which put federal protections in place for Black Americans to be able to vote.
The Secretary of Defense cleared out the military of all trans service members, even though they served honorably and loved their country.
There are once again people in concentration camps on United States soil, and they are once again immigrants.
As disheartening (and frankly, terrifying) as all of this is and has been, I am inspired by the stories of Americans who dreamed and believed that all people are truly equal, and they fought for that dream to become a reality. It would be a dishonor to their memory and their life’s work to stop fighting now. These everyday heroes are why this blog even exists in the first place. There was a need for sharing more diverse stories with children about the people who made a difference in American history.
Every child deserves to see themselves in the pages of American history. Those role models are there, we just have to look for them. And then we have to follow in their footsteps.
