Ironically, Denali gets the opening chapter in James W. Loewen's classic book Lies Across America: What our historic sites get wrong. In it, Loewen explains that Denali "the great one" is a ridiculous choice in the first place that caused nearly thirty years of debate when it first happened and doesn't actually name the President. That's not to say that Denali wasn't renamed Mount McKinley after William McKinley who became President and was subsequently assassinated. It's just that the renaming took place before McKinley was elected. The mountain was called after him because the namer "favored conservative fical policies, while most people in the West wanted to expand the amount of money in circulation by minting more silver coins".
It was "little more than a joke" according to one historian. Once the name did get up, it became a battle ground for left and right - for those defending actual history and indigenous culture, and those who prefer to celebrate the history of white European settlers. "It's an insult to the former President" cry those who want to keep the McKinley name, but as Loewen point out, "most Americans don't rank William McKinley very high... They remember him if at all as a creation of political boss Mark Hanna, beholden to big business, and addicted to high tariffs". This is a case of the invention of tradition.
This discussion sets the tone for Loewen's fascinating book which discusses how history is remembered in the United States, and indeed why it is remembered. Sweeping West to East, and down through the American South, Loewen explores countless sites and shows how a particular view of US history is portrayed - one that expresses the dominance of European settler culture, celebrates imperialism, and downplays or ignores events and individuals that challenge this narrative.
There are some shocking things. There are the monuments to slave owners and the "docile slaves". The celebrations of Confederate defeats that make them look like victories, and the lauding of vile, violent, racist individuals who are portrayed as their opposite. There are monuments and statues that mark the defeat of "savage" indigenous people, lie about massacres (even one marker that commerates a "massacre" that never happened) and portray non-white people as subservient and stupid. There are also booster monuments, designed to attract tourists to the places such as the location were the first car drove, even though it didn't. Lies indeed.
Loewen gives an interesting view into the debate about whether statues should "fall". He argues, convincingly, that statues should not necessarily be destroyed. They could be removed, or replaced with information plaques that celebrate real history, or give a truer account and explain why the original statue was there. However he also notes that some statues were placed as deliberate acts of intimidation and provocation. These should be removed. But how should they be recorded?
One statue, known for many years by the racist term "The Good Darky" shows how this can be the case. It was erected in downtown Natchitoches, Louisiana. It was "from the start, intended to beuseful only to the cause of white supremacy". It markes, as the inscription says, the "grateful recognition of the Arduous and faithful service of the Good Darkies of Louisiana". This "service" was the alleged support of some slaves for the South's war to defend slavery. It ignores the many slaves who escaped to fight with the Union, as well as those who didn't flee from fear of violent punishment - but certainly did not support the South. The statue was also designed to remind black people after the war of their place, and their subservient position during segregation. Jokes about the statue by local whites suggested that it was a place were drunk black people could find their way home. But the statue really showed the position that black people were supposed to have to white people - subservient, bowed, secondary. It was not a depiction of the past, but a demonstration of the present.
One statue, known for many years by the racist term "The Good Darky" shows how this can be the case. It was erected in downtown Natchitoches, Louisiana. It was "from the start, intended to beuseful only to the cause of white supremacy". It markes, as the inscription says, the "grateful recognition of the Arduous and faithful service of the Good Darkies of Louisiana". This "service" was the alleged support of some slaves for the South's war to defend slavery. It ignores the many slaves who escaped to fight with the Union, as well as those who didn't flee from fear of violent punishment - but certainly did not support the South. The statue was also designed to remind black people after the war of their place, and their subservient position during segregation. Jokes about the statue by local whites suggested that it was a place were drunk black people could find their way home. But the statue really showed the position that black people were supposed to have to white people - subservient, bowed, secondary. It was not a depiction of the past, but a demonstration of the present.
Loewen writes of the subservient posture of the person depicted on the statue that, "the servile pose of the statue was no myth but a rational response by African Americans to an untenable situation. The response, like the statue, was nevertheless a white creation." Loewen continues about what should happen to monuments like this:
American rejoinced when Poles and East Germans toppled their statues of Lenin. Within our shored... we are not so sure. When statues become controversial... civic leaders sometimes suggest that they be carted off to a museum. The statue of 'The Good Darky' shows what can go wrong with that solution. Although run by a university, the Rural Life Museum [where the statue was moved to] has not used 'The Good Darky' to 'provide insight into the largely forgotten lifestyles and cultures of pre-industrial Louisiana,' the museum's avoed purpose. Instead it situated the statue in a place of honor. No plaque gives any information about it history of symbolic meaning.
I read the second edition of this book, is that Loewen explains how the book has changed since its first edition. The updates reflect real change since 1999, as the 2000s saw an enormous blacklash against monuments that depicted problematic things and a growing interested in how history was marked. This, Loewen argues, was the result of two events. The first was the murder of nine blcakc churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, by a "neo-Confederate". Almost overnight many Confederate monuments that had been subject of long campaigns for removal, where taken down. The second was Black Lives Matter, which physically confronted statues as well as forcing a global reappraisel about how the history of slavery and racism were depicted and understood. As such, some of the monuments in the first edition have been moved, changed or destroyed. Others remain. But it is fascinating to see that while Loewen's book's first edition certainly did make a difference and forced some places to reconsider their monuments. It was the mass movements and the revulsion at racist violence, that made the real difference.
This is important for today. Because Trump's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico and Denali mountain is not a random act of stupidity. It is a calculated attempt to reshift how history and geography are used to understand and shape people's knowledge of the world. It is an attempt to reverse the gains of our movements, and it is an attempt to reconsolidate and empower white supremacy and racism. It should be resisted and reversed. Lies Across American remains a powerful tool in that struggle.
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