I told M that we had to buy the print copy because I knew that it would be a treasure for years to come.
A while ago, I worried about the possibility of the hateful, racist tRump presiding over the union as we mark the 400th anniversary of one of the country's original sins. 63 million Americans made that nightmare possible!
Slavery was integral to Jill Lepore's single-volume narration of the history of the United States. Lepore set out with a clear agenda:
The American experiment rests on three political ideas--"these truths," Thomas Jefferson called them--political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. ...Jefferson was "an egregious hypocrite, who willfully betrayed the ideals he espoused." As I noted in that post more than three years ago--a time when the fans of fascists in the old and adopted countries frequently commented at this blog--"If Jefferson had set a better example by freeing his slaves, and as a legislator and president if he had championed the rights of blacks, perhaps our history would have been different."
Does American history prove these truths, or does it belie them?
As always, Frederick Douglass was on the point:
Slavery lies in this country not because of any paper Constitution, but in the moral blindness of the American people.After going to New Orleans, which included visiting the Whitney Plantation, I wrote in a column in the newspaper:
We as a country have never truly come to terms with the true horrors of the buying and selling of human beings and the atrocious treatment of slaves and, therefore, the racial dimensions of contemporary America.The 1619 Project gives us more educational opportunities. But then tRump and his white supremacist toadies believe that the NY Times is fake news and is a propaganda publication. I don't imagine that they will ever see the errors of their path.
All we can do is continue to fight the good fight. We shall overcome ... some day!
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