In Brief: Let’s Celebrate America’s Black Patriots
Congressman Burgess Owens offers a timely reminder of actual American history and our heroes.
With all the popular clamoring over Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory’s demonization of America’s founding and subsequent development, U.S. Representative Burgess Owens (R-UT) offers a timely and refreshing reminder of what America actual stands for, and how several black American Patriots have contributed to our great nation.
All over America, we are seeing our country, national anthem and flag under assault by celebrities, athletes and media talking heads. The nation and symbols that represent freedom and opportunity to so many are being painted as divisive and hateful by ill-intentioned revisionists. But there is a simple disinfectant to the anti-American virus we are seeing everywhere: true American history.
Unlike the current false assertions of CRT, Owens writes:
A walk through true American history reveals America’s acknowledgement of Black contributions. Through tens of thousands of pictures and documents archived in the Library of Congress, white American historians have preserved a 230-year legacy of respect for Black Americans. Yet it is virtually impossible to find reference to America’s Black patriots in today’s educational system. These heroes have been universally (and purposefully) erased from the national public school system curriculum.
And why are the peddlers of CRT seeking to erase true American history? They’re trying to hide our nation’s progress.
The present attempt to rewrite American history denies the 245 years we have spent honoring the accomplishments of the Black community. It instead offers the narrative of a hapless and hopeless intergenerational community; one historically oppressed by a more powerful and privileged white race. This propaganda has resulted in an increasing number of angry Americans.
Owens goes on to list and briefly describe the signifiant contributions of several black Patriots, including America’s first martyr for the cause of freedom, Crispus Attucks; Revolutionary War spy James Armistead; and Peter Salem, a marksman member of the Massachusetts Minutemen who prevented the British from overtaking the American position in the Battle of Bunker Hill by shooting and killing British Major John Pitcairn.
As Leftist organizations and activists demand that Americans accept a revisionary and divisive version of American history, let’s choose a different way. Instead of tolerating the falsehood that we, as Americans, fundamentally judge others based on their race, let’s return to the vision of Martin Luther King, Jr, that “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
