Who Owns American History?

Why did the National Park Service regularly denigrate the events of 1776 prior to the Trump Administration? In the Claremont Review of Books’ 25th anniversary issue, Jeffrey Anderson describes a visit to Independence National Historical Park, situated in the heart of old Philadelphia and run by the National Park Service. Congress created Independence Park for the purpose of “preserving” historic sites associated with “the American Revolution and the founding and growth of the United States,” as Anderson notes.

Anderson found an overwhelming emphasis on slavery and race—25 of 30 signs at the park’s President’s House, where George Washington and John Adams lived during part of their presidencies, “focus on slavery or race relations.” He writes that Washington and other founders “stand accused” of “‘injustice’” and “‘immorality.’” The first U.S. president’s “actions [are] characterized as ‘deplorable,’ ‘profoundly disturbing,’ and as having ‘mocked the nation’s pretense to be a beacon of liberty.’”

How did this situation come to pass?

We must go back 24 years to the formation of the Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC). A lawyer, community activist, and founding member of ATAC, Michael Coard, expressed the mindset of the group in a July 4, 2021, essay in the Philadelphia Tribune:

July Fourth is a celebration of kidnapping, transporting/buying/selling human beings, separating families, torture, whippings, rapes, castrations, lynchings and enslavement…. So why do many Black folks continue to do their flag-waving, fireworks-blasting, and swine-barbecuing thing on July Fourth? The answer is obvious. They’re ignorant or they’re traitors or they’re both.

Incidentally, ATAC sponsors “Anti-Fourth of July Day” events annually—and its mailing address happens to be Coard’s law office. To describe the group as anti-American and particularly hostile to patriotic African Americans is an understatement.