SACRAMENTO — My wife and I still chuckle about the time we toured the battlefield in Petersburg, Virginia, where 100,000 Union forces led by Ulysses S. Grant laid siege to 20,000 Confederate soldiers led by Robert E. Lee. It was the longest battle of the Civil War, lasting 292 days. Brutal trench warfare led to 70,000 casualties, as Union forces cut supply lines to the Confederate capital in nearby Richmond and precipitated the South’s defeat.
There was nothing funny about this brutal slice of American history, of course, but we were bemused by the National Park Service video that took an unequivocally pro-Southern stance. In particular, the narrator talked about the “advancing Yankee hordes,” which made an odd impression on two Pennsylvanians who grew up with a much different take on these events. Our tour was 43 years ago, so I imagine the video has since been updated to better reflect modern sensibilities.
We did not, however, get upset or complain to management. It added local color. Human beings have a knack for fighting over history, as we somehow believe that controlling the past’s narrative will lead to a future in line with our preferences. For years, we’ve watched progressive snowflakes commandeer history by reducing America’s grand achievement in advancing human liberty to its worst moments (slavery, Jim Crow laws, Trail of Tears).
And now right-wing revanchists are doing the same thing, as they try to wipe away even the mere mention of our nation’s most sordid past. In his executive order last year, President Donald Trump gave examples of museum exhibits with a politically correct bent. Then he declared: “It is the policy of my administration to restore federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage.” The Smithsonian Institution will now promote “American greatness.”
We’re seeing the fruits of this EO in specific policies. Astute visitors to the nation’s parks have noted new signs from the Department of the Interior that encourage people to use a QR code or a website to identify “any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, or abundance of landscapes or other features.” The latter point sounds bizarre. I’ve visited many National Parks and can’t recall ever seeing a sign demeaning the surrounding beauty.
The real goal isn’t to promote accuracy, but to encourage agitated Karens to complain about historical references that make them uncomfortable. “Should rangers at Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument avoid speaking negatively about slavery? Should rangers at Manzanar National Historic Site avoid talking about the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II?” asked Theresa Pierno, CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association.
I’ve visited Manzanar and interviewed camp survivors. It’s hard to imagine learning about what happened without, say, speaking negatively about the scoundrels who allowed it to happen, including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who signed the enabling executive order, and California Attorney General (and later chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) Earl Warren, who was a key proponent for rousting Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans from their homes. The nation officially apologized in 1988, so is it OK for park officials to reference that or not?
Ironically, the National Park Service’s website currently discusses the internment in a fair and factually accurate manner, although this history doesn’t offer solemn and uplifting sentiments that bolster American greatness: “Many of the anti-Japanese fears arose from economic factors combined with envy. … Other fears were military in nature; the Russo-Japanese War proved that the Japanese were a force to be reckoned with, and stimulated fears of Asian conquest — ‘the Yellow Peril.’” Let’s hope no one in the administration gets wind of this explanation.
Just to be safe in the eyes of the administration and its armies of easily offended snitches, perhaps Manzanar should no longer refer to itself as a “site of conscience,” and instead explain that it was a lovely resort erected to provide the California Issei with a relaxing getaway in the isolated desert. Or perhaps the Tubman monument could stop referring to African Americans’ enslavement and instead focus on all the great jobs they were provided in big plantations. I’m being facetious, as history should be told as accurately as possible, warts and all.
Trump has also “ordered signs outside the National Museum of American History warning visitors that American historical accounts inside aren’t accurate, in his telling,” according to USA Today. This president seems incapable of accurately describing ongoing events — such as the on-again, off-again, on-again war in Iran — so I can’t trust him as the arbiter of our nation’s history.
I suspect that 40-odd years from now, after Trump is a distant memory, others might look back in bemusement at our current civil war over historical descriptions.
Steven Greenhut is western region director for the R Street Institute and a member of the Southern California News Group editorial board. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.