Teach All of our History…Even What We’re Not Proud of
Five years ago, President Trump, then wrapping up his first term, led an insurrection at the United States Capitol. Trump, now in his second term, is leading an all-out effort to whitewash it from our history.
January 6, 2021, joins other infamous dates, including December 7, 1941, November 22, 1963, and September 11, 2001, representing sadness or shame in our nation’s annals. Inspired by a speech Trump gave that day, a mob of MAGA-crazed supporters stormed the Capitol, disrupting a joint session of Congress that had convened to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. In the aftermath, the FBI classified the attack as an act of domestic terrorism, which endangered the country’s peaceful transfer of power. Under then-President Joe Biden, federal law enforcement officials went to work, and eventually, one by one, individuals involved were prosecuted for their involvement.
Justice was being served. Until it wasn’t.
On the evening of January 20, 2025, the first day of Trump’s second term, the whitewashing began. As he had promised throughout the campaign leading to his second election victory, Trump started the formal process of eradicating this date from our history. Referring to it now as a “day of love” and the participants as “patriots,” Trump issued a proclamation commuting sentences and granting pardons for more than 1200 individuals involved and halting the ongoing prosecution of many more.
Just like that, one of the darkest days in our country’s storied history was no longer seen as such – at least by those who blindly and loyally stand with MAGA.
Jan 6th is only one part of the whitewash. This president is trying to rewrite history in a blatantly partisan attempt to manipulate the past to falsely promote his own ideology.
There was nothing good about slavery, which perpetuated a cruel economic system in which white slaveholders mortgaged and sold their own children. Yet on his Truth Social page Trump wrote: “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was;” he directed the National Parks Service to remove material related to slavery and Native Americans; and the administration ordered workers at Manassas National Battlefield Park to remove a sign that noted the mirage of the Confederacy’s prejudicial “Lost Cause” folklore, falsely claiming that states’ rights and not slavery was responsible for the “war of northern aggression.”
We must teach our children what really happened in our country’s history, not just a version through Trump-colored glasses. This is why, in response to Trump’s unceasing efforts to whitewash what is one of the most disgraceful episodes in our nation’s history, I am sponsoring legislation in the New York State Assembly to require K-12 instruction on the January 6th, 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol and its aftermath.
Not since the War of 1812, when British forces set fire to the Capitol, have the halls of power in Washington been overtaken by violent intruders as they were on Jan. 6. With this legislation, we ensure that it’s a day that will not be forgotten.
The American Historical Association writes that “teaching today’s events, which are not a ‘moment,’ but the product of a long history, presents a familiar, yet unusually urgent, challenge: How can students use historical knowledge and thinking to understand the present?”
Young people are looking to their teachers to help them understand both history and current events. New York’s educators have a responsibility to help our students understand what happened on that day and assist them in analyzing the legacy of that historical moment.
President Trump’s policy to erase from the memory of time historic material that inappropriately disparages past or living (including persons living in colonial times) and instead focus on the greatness and achievements and progress of the American people is simply a construct that corrupts and perverts our history.
I sincerely hope that Americans of good faith will challenge the administration’s attempts to move our nation towards an autocracy by attempting to whitewash parts of our history and instead fulfill our nation’s solemn obligation to teach our children the truth. Without it, our struggle to establish a more perfect union and ability to remain, as Lincoln put it, “earth’s last best hope,” is in mortal peril.
Charles Lavine represents the 13th Assembly District.
