- Oct 17, 2011
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Trump's version of history without historian input is as successful as his version of science and medicine without scientist and medical input.
Historians responded with dismay and anger Monday after the White House’s “1776 Commission” released a report that it said would help Americans better understand the nation’s history by “restoring patriotic education.”
The 45-page report is largely an attack on decades of historical scholarship, particularly when it comes to the nation’s 400-year-old legacy of slavery, and most of those listed as authors lack any credentials as historians. While claiming to present a nonpartisan history, it compares progressivism to fascism and claims the civil rights movement devolved into “preferential” identity politics “not unlike those advanced by [slavery defender John C.] Calhoun and his followers.”
Several historians said it was particularly offensive that the report was released on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and included several photos King and quotes they said were taken out of context.
“The suggestion that affirmative action programs are somehow antithetical to the vision of Martin Luther King Jr. is simply ludicrous,” said Princeton historian Kevin M. Kruse. “King was alive when the Johnson administration launched its affirmative action programs and publicly declared his support, specifically noting that it was a logical extension of the struggle for black equality."
Historians responded with dismay and anger Monday after the White House’s “1776 Commission” released a report that it said would help Americans better understand the nation’s history by “restoring patriotic education.”
The 45-page report is largely an attack on decades of historical scholarship, particularly when it comes to the nation’s 400-year-old legacy of slavery, and most of those listed as authors lack any credentials as historians. While claiming to present a nonpartisan history, it compares progressivism to fascism and claims the civil rights movement devolved into “preferential” identity politics “not unlike those advanced by [slavery defender John C.] Calhoun and his followers.”
Several historians said it was particularly offensive that the report was released on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and included several photos King and quotes they said were taken out of context.
“The suggestion that affirmative action programs are somehow antithetical to the vision of Martin Luther King Jr. is simply ludicrous,” said Princeton historian Kevin M. Kruse. “King was alive when the Johnson administration launched its affirmative action programs and publicly declared his support, specifically noting that it was a logical extension of the struggle for black equality."
