A brief list of ways in which the United States can keep from erasing history

How Will We Preserve History Without Confederate Statues?
BY MARY PEZZULO


I have compiled a brief and non-exhaustive list of ways in which the United States can keep from erasing history, without maintaining unattractive bronze monuments to white supremacy on municipal land. Feel free to show it to your state representatives and congresspersons. No need to thank me.

1) Books.

2) Coffee table books. These are different from regular books because nobody ever reads the text in these, they just leave them out for company as a conversation piece. But sometimes people leaf through the illustrations in coffee table books, and nice big quality photographs are educational in their own way.

3) Board books. These are coffee table books for infants.

4) Documentaries. I particularly like the kind where trained actors read letters from actual historic persons as brownish cursive text is superimposed over a montage of old photos. It’s kind of like reading a book, but less taxing.

5) Museums. Museums are like documentaries, only you have to leave your house and go walk in front of the displays instead of displays flashing before your eyes. Some charge admission, so remember to bring money.

6) Staged reenactments. These can be lots of fun. It’s like Comic Con only with explosions, and everyone dresses up as the same fandom. Serious men who claim not to be geeks really come alive at reenactments. It’s great.

7) Historic replica villages, with actual miniature farms and blacksmiths and such. Kind of like the Renaissance Fair, but more intense. I once went to an historic replica Civil War village in Ohio, where a bearded man in a blousey shirt was making authentic replica Ohio Union recruitment posters with an authentic replica printing press. He said that once, some Southern tourists visiting Ohio came into his shop and went ballistic. The Southern man literally foamed at the mouth with anger. The Southern woman shouted “They killed our boys!” and had to be escorted from the shop. These people are an example of what happens when you get all your history lessons from Confederate statues.

8) Taking history courses at a community college.

9) Other statues– statues that preserve history more accurately. Statues of enslaved persons with scourged backs, women screaming as their infants are taken and sold, mutilations, torture. Statues of courageous Americans like Harriet Tubman who escaped slavery and then risked her life to rescue others from that horror. Statues of abolitionists and conductors on the Underground railroad. Real American heroes.

10) Video games.

You are welcome to expand the list in the comment section.

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