I
f you’re anything like me, the
Black Lives Matter movement
has caused you to second guess
everything you thought you knew
about our country’s controversial his-
tory. I went to a small high school that
had little to no diversity from students
to staff, which is reflected in the gaps
in my education. Personally, June-
teenth was a major awakening for me.
Though June 19 was the day that the
last enslaved people were emancipated
in Texas, I had never heard about it
before. I was always taught that Presi-
dent Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation
Proclamation, along with the passage
of the 13th amendment, ushered in
a new era of liberty. This is just one
example of the palpable bias that shad-
ows modern history curriculum. The
United States history curriculum is
long overdue for an overhaul that accu-
rately portrays our country’s history.
In my small high school, however,
this controversy seemed far away.
In fact, it wasn’t uncommon to see
someone sporting clothing that fea-
tured the Confederate flag, igno-
rant to the deeper meaning of that
symbol. Recently, however, a debate
has sparked regarding the display
of Confederate flags and Confeder-
ate monuments. In cities across the
country, Confederate statues have
been removed, and NASCAR offi-
cially banned the Confederate flag at
all of its events. Still, those opposed
to the departure of this iconography
remain adamant, urging that dis-
playing Confederate symbols only
memorializes history and ensures it
doesn’t repeat itself.
The origin of these symbols seems
to contradict this notion, as many
Confederate statues were erected
during the Jim Crow and Civil Rights
movement era, in direct response
to the tidings of Black equality in
America. Furthermore, the Confed-
erate flag — a modern day symbol of
white supremacy defended as a piece
of history — was never the official
flag of the Confederacy. It was just
the battle flag. In addition, the flag
wasn’t widely used until the 1940s in
response to the emergence of ideas
that would guide the Civil Rights
Movement.
But we were never taught this. We
were never taught that the flag was
a direct symbol of hate utilized as a
response to the Civil Rights move-
ment. We were never taught that
many Confederate statues were simi-
larly erected as symbols of inequal-
ity and intimidation. It is because
we never learned these precious
facets of history that the gravity of
these symbols has been lost. Unfor-
tunately, this appears to be a trend:
White authors of history curricu-
lum paint the tale of this country in
black and white — leaving gaps on the
canvas where the grey of our ances-
tors’ immorality should lie. Instead,
we are taught to revere the Found-
ing Fathers, many of whom owned
slaves, and that, while wrong, slavery
was simply the answer to an inevi-
table need for labor in the colonies.
While our textbooks may include a
very basic telling of events, this tell-
ing is incredibly one-sided and fails
to include a fuller, complex version of
history wherein minorities perished
at the hands of white men we have
been taught to glorify like modern-
day gods.
This is due in part to textbook
information disparity created by
partisan politics. In a phenomenon
known as “The Texas Effect,” many
publishers have historically based
curriculum off of Texas standards
because Texas has a large number
of public schools, equating to higher
profits for these publishers. This cur-
riculum tends to highlight Christian-
ity, downplay slavery and celebrate
the Founding Fathers — omitting
or manipulating vital chunks of
our nation’s controversial history.
When compared to California his-
tory textbooks, these inconspicuous
differences are very telling of the
motivations behind this twisted nar-
rative of history. These textbooks are
intended to indoctrinate students, as
many of these policymakers want to
influence the upcoming generation,
and the best way to do so is through
education.
The actual events of our nation’s
past and the history we were taught
are two very different tales. While
the names and dates may be the same,
the narrative diverges significantly,
glazing over horrific atrocities while
glorifying immoral men. The only
cure for ignorance is education, and
the only remedy for manipulation is
honesty. We need a comprehensive
reform of the curriculum to illustrate
a candid portrait of history. Though it
may be uncomfortable at times, it was
Meghan Markle who said, “We’re
going to have to be a little uncomfort-
able right now, because it’s only in
pushing through that discomfort that
we get to the other side of this and
find the place where a high tide raises
all ships.” After all, teaching an hon-
est and accurate version of history is
the only way we can make sure that
this history never repeats itself again.
5
Thursday, July 23, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
5
OP
OPINION
ON
One nation, two histories
MADELEINE LAPIERRE | COLUMNIST
Madeleine LaPierre can be reached at
madlapi@umich.edu.
TUHIN CHAKRABORTY | COLUMNIST
L
ast Friday, the nation mourn-
ed the loss of one of the great-
est American civil rights
leaders of all time. U.S. Rep. John
Lewis, D-Ga., passed away after a bat-
tle with stage four pancreatic cancer
at the age of 80. Before his election to
Congress in 1986, Lewis had previous-
ly distinguished himself as a leader of
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee and a member of the “Big
Six,” an elite group of civil rights icons
that included Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1963, Lewis spoke at the March
on Washington, where King gave his
globally famous “I Have a Dream”
speech. From organizing protests
nationwide and marching with Dr.
King in the 1960s, to leading a sit-in
on the U.S. House floor advocating for
gun control legislation in 2016, Lewis
is a giant whose shadow spans many
eras in U.S. history and whose legacy
will no doubt shine far into the future.
Lewis passed away as the U.S. is
grappling with one of the greatest
civil rights struggles in recent memo-
ry: the widespread protests following
the George Floyd killing. It is widely
known that one of the consequences
of this fallout has been the renewed
debate regarding the removal of
statues of Confederate or otherwise
racist historical figures across the
country. However, with the debate
around statue removal still raging,
it is equally important to consider
which statues we should keep and
which statues we should build.
All throughout his life, Lewis
fought for racial equality in a way con-
sistent with the values of today’s Black
Lives Matter movement, and now
that he has left us, it is time to immor-
talize him in marble or metal like we
have done for so many less-deserving
Americans. Specifically, a good place
to start would be having a statue of
Lewis replace the statue of Confed-
erate Vice President Alexander Ste-
phens as one of Georgia’s statues in
the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall.
Championed by the late 19th cen-
tury Vermont senator Justin Morrill,
who is better known for the Morrill
Land Grant Act which helped estab-
lish public universities like Michigan
State, the legislation calling for a Stat-
uary Hall commemorating American
heroes was passed into law in 1864.
The criteria for memorializing statues
according to Morrill’s proposal is as
follows: “deceased persons who have
been citizens thereof, and illustrious
for their historic renown or for distin-
guished civic or military services such
as each State may deem to be worthy
of this national commemoration.”
Currently, Georgia’s two statues are
Crawford Long, a 19th-century phy-
sician who invented the use of anes-
thetic substances during surgery, and
the far more controversial Stephens
who, in addition to being a leader in
the Confederacy, was the owner of
30+ slaves before the Civil War.
Since John Lewis has, to the great
sadness of so many Americans, passed
away, it is time to remove the statue
of Stephens and erect one that com-
memorates Lewis in the Capitol. This
is more than a fitting proposition, as
Lewis was known during his life as
“the Conscience of the Congress” for
his calm but principled leadership. In
addition to the aforementioned gun
control sit-in, some of Lewis’s greatest
accomplishments in Congress include
helping to pass the Voting Rights
Advancement Act of 2019 through
the House of Representatives, which
holds individual states accountable for
restrictive voter registration and vot-
ing practices, and co-sponsoring the
Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights
Crimes Reauthorization Act of 2016,
which devotes FBI and DOJ resources
to solving civil rights-related cold cases
for hate crimes like lynchings.
Meanwhile, one of Stephens’s
greatest “accomplishments” is his
fiery Cornerstone Speech, which he
delivered in Georgia in the weeks
before the attack of Fort Sumter.
This speech is credited as one of the
clearest explanations of the Con-
federate system of government, and
a key factor behind the galvaniza-
tion of pro-Confederate sentiment
heading into the Civil War. In this
speech, Stephens declared that slav-
ery — i.e. the “great truth that the
negro is not equal to the white man”
— was the “cornerstone” (hence the
oration’s nickname) of the Confed-
erate States of America and that the
“natural and moral condition” of
Black enslavement was what made
the Confederacy truly great. These
are the horrifying words of the
kind of man who would have been
Lewis’s worst enemy. The fact that
Georgia believes that someone
who would say this is “worthy of
national commemoration” is sim-
ply nauseating and in desperate
need of rectification.
As previously stated, even as a
young man, Lewis was constantly
fighting for improving the treat-
ment of his own community. In
Morrill’s own words, one of the most
important factors behind whether
a statue should be enshrined in
Statuary Hall is their commitment
to improving our democracy in
the form of “distinguished civic …
services.” What bigger civic duty
is there than getting Americans to
vote? Lewis spent much of his time
with SNCC attempting to have
Black Americans registered to vote
in spite of racist poll taxes and litera-
cy tests, and his skull was even frac-
tured by Alabama police while he
was protesting for the original 1965
Voting Rights Act in Selma, Ala.,
near the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
In Lewis’s own words, “the right
to vote is precious … the vote is the
most powerful, non-violent tool we
have in a democratic society.”
On the other hand, and this
should not be surprising at this
point, Stephens continued to be a
callous racist after the Civil War
ended. He was elected to Congress
representing Georgia from 1873 to
1882 and then became the gover-
nor of Georgia from 1882 until his
death in 1883. He was influential
in Georgia politics during a post-
Reconstruction period that saw a
resurgence of white supremacy and
a litany of Black voting restrictions,
such as the 1877 poll tax require-
ment which, although abolished in
1945, was similar to the one Lewis
fought against decades later.
This article does not even begin
to cover how incredible and effec-
tive John Lewis was as an activist
and legislator. In addition to his vot-
ing rights and congressional work,
he led legendary sit-ins against seg-
regation across the country, and was
one of the original Freedom Riders
protesting the segregation of bus
stations in the South. After Lewis’s
death, current Georgia Gov. Brian
Kemp related a statement praising
him as a “Civil Rights hero, freedom
fighter, devoted public servant, and
beloved Georgian who changed our
world in a profound way.”
However, while many members of
Congress are trying to get rid of Con-
federate statues in the Capitol, currently
only a state’s government can officially
remove and replace that state’s statue.
With that in mind, everything Kemp
said about Lewis would be utterly
hypocritical if he continued to allow
Stephens — the anti-Lewis if there ever
was one — to represent Georgia in the
Capitol. If Georgians really believe that
Lewis was a beloved member of their
state, they need to act as soon as possible
and purge the stain of the Confederacy
from their public memorials, starting
with Stephens, and end this purge with
new memorials to the right people, like
Congressman John Lewis.
The kind of person who needs a statue: John Lewis
Tuhin Chakraborty can be reached
at tchakra@umich.edu.