We are living in a time of intentional forgetting. Too many of our leaders and citizens are terrified of the actual history of the United States. They demand that our schools, libraries, media, universities, businesses, and nearly every other American institution accept a sanitized story that glorifies the white, English-speaking people they see as the real Americans. They want to erase any realities that question or contradict that story. There is a long history of such distorting glorification — often, if we are honest, displayed at previous centennial celebrations — but today these distortions are reaching the level of intentional propaganda. And anyone who disagrees, we are told, must hate America.
As we consider how to observe the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, isn’t it time to promote a more honest picture? What deserves to be celebrated, and what deserves to be remembed, if we want to orient the United States toward a North Star we can agree is genuine?
I will not name the long list of facts that the sanitized story of America conceals. If you have read this far, you already know what they are. Instead, I will try to identify the propositions essential to the North Star that has guided many courageous Americans since 1776. Among these “self-evident” propositions are the following:
1.The origin of government rests on the consent of the people rather than on some mandate from a divinely sanctioned leader or minority.
2. All people are equal and have the right to participate in collective decisions. Freedom, therefore, means justice for all, not only for the wealthy and powerful.
In my view, it is these ideals that deserve celebration. We can measure the historical actions of Americans by the extent to which they have pursued and realized these ideals. And it is loyalty to these ideals, rather than to any powerful leader or subset of the people, that must be praised. This means that Americans can never rest on the political and economic arrangements that prevailed in 1776 or at any other period since.
This year there will be many national and local commemorations of what happened 250 years ago. Isn’t it time we celebrate those who gave their lives to defend these ideals and not simply to show allegiance to a flag?
David Brule has suggested that the most important event in the history of Franklin County was the bloody attack on Native Americans gathered at the Great Falls during Metacom’s (or King Phillip’s) War. It was a complex event and a complex war that caused suffering to all involved, but what is undeniable is that it was also a key moment in the westward expansion of European settlers, a process that would continue all the way to Hawaii. That expansion indicates that, for too many of these settlers, equality was not really a “self evident” proposition. It only applied to those they considered part of their national community. Shall we simply pretend this isn’t true?
The crucial point is that this is not simply about the past: it’s about navigating the present. Native North Americans are still here. It so happens that 2026 is the 350th anniversary of the Great Falls attack. Remembering and acknowledging what happened here in 1676 should be an essential part of our commemoration activities. One way to begin is to participate in the Day of Remembrance on Saturday, May 16, at the Great Falls Discovery Center. The spirit of 76, and the ghosts of 76, is who we are. This is not a time to cling to a sanitized story of America. This is a crucial moment to turn directly to our North Star.
Patrick McGreevy lives in Greenfield and welcomes comments at pmcgreevy64@gmail.com.