“History is written by the victors” can not be attributed to Winston Churchill, even if we want him to have said it. It is a perfectly good example of how history is not always what we want it to be. We have our favorite version that validates all that we believe in, but there are other versions that could challenge our view of who we are. This is the historical theory that Republicans are attacking when they fume about Critical Race Theory. They cannot accept the view that history is often written by the victors.
Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders would be an example of a white graduate of Little Rock Central High School who has emerged a victor in Arkansas history. “I’ll never forget being a student at Little Rock Central High and watching my dad, a Republican governor, and Bill Clinton, a Democrat president, hold open the doors for the Little Rock Nine, doors that 40 years earlier had been closed to them because they’re Black,” Huckabee Sanders said in the ad.
“Good triumphed over evil,” Huckabee Sanders continued. “This is who we are.”
That, in two sentences, is the Critical Republican Theory of History (CRT).
“Good triumphed over evil. That is who we are.”
And we can be proud of that progress without forgetting the history of where we came from. How do Black citizens remember Little Rock Central High School? When they look at the bronze memorial of the “Little Rock Nine” [https://www.littlerock.com/little-rock-destinations/testament-the-little-rock-nine-monument] they probably remember the photo of Elizabeth Eckford surrounded by angry white citizens as she makes her way toward the high school, September 4, 1957.
But on the first day of school, a mob of furious white people assembled to make sure they couldn’t get in. The black students had trained for this moment. But nothing could prepare Eckford for the screaming, taunting crowd that surrounded the school. They called out for her to be lynched and yelled slogans like “Two, four, six eight, we don’t want to integrate!” In the midst of the horde, reporters and photojournalists recorded the chaos.
Our collective memories of that day are tainted by the image of Eckford, surrounded by angry white people, walking in dark glasses and a white dress on a journey that she could not complete that day.
An alternate-angle view of Elizabeth Eckford on her first day of school, in a photo taken by an Associated Press photographer. Hazel Bryan can be seen behind her in the crowd. (Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images)
No one is proud of this day in history, whether Black nor White. That doesn’t mean we should turn it into a bronze rendering and forget the ugliness of that day. That doesn’t mean we should ignore the shame we do feel for an ugly day in our history. Remember the shame and be proud of the progress. We can do both. You can hold pain and joy in the same hand. That is how history is recalled.
With Critical Republican Theory (CRT) we are supposed to remember our accomplishments, but not our shame. We are afraid to see the dark moments of our past in any detail, because they mar the “greatness” that is America. You can not construct “greatness” with a flawed history, Critical Republican Theory believes.
The same selective approach to history has been applied by Governor DeSantis to the Advanced Placement curriculum in African American Studies. After examining the outlines of the curriculum the Governor declared:
This course on Black history, what [is] one of the lessons about? Queer theory. Now, who would say that’s an important part of Black history, Queer theory? That is somebody pushing an agenda on our kids.
Governor DeSantis spoke from a depth of ignorance about a curriculum developed by specialists in Black Studies. How do you think about Black Studies in the 21st Century without mentioning James Baldwin, Alice Walker, Lorraine Hansberry, and Audre Lourde, all gay writers? Is it any coincidence that the civil rights of gay citizens are under fire today as Black citizens were fifty years ago? Governor DeSantis and the Florida Board of Education tried to dictate how Black Studies is taught across the entire country by attacking the modern civil rights of LBGTQ contributors to the Advanced Placement curriculum.
Since then the College Board published their updated version of the African Studies curriculum. According to the New York Times:
In its revised 234-page curriculum framework, the content on Africa, slavery, reconstruction, and the civil rights movement remains largely the same. But the study of contemporary topics—including Black Lives Matter, incarceration, queer life, and the debate over reparations—is downgraded. The subjects are no longer part of the exam, and are simply offered on a list of options for a required research project. And even that list, in a nod to local laws, “can be refined by local states and districts.”
This year Little Rock Central High School is piloting the same course in AP African American Studies. Arkansas Governor Huckabee Sanders on Jan. 10, her first day in office, issued the executive order that has since prompted Arkansas Department of Education leaders to ask the New York City-based College Board — the maker of the course — for information on its content.
[DOCUMENT: Read African American Studies – PILOT COURSE GUIDE » arkansasonline.com/201history/]
Ruthie Walls, a veteran Arkansas social studies and economics teacher as well as a former charter high school director, told the Central High School Tiger newspaper this week that the course that she is teaching “does not violate … the executive order by any stretch of the imagination.””
In email responses to questions from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Walls said it is “of vital importance to teach” the history course because students want to learn the information, and it helps students be well-informed and able to think critically.
This struggle of history educators against the white governors of southern states illustrates how sometimes “History is written by the victors.” No one wants to believe that, but the active revision of the Florida Board of Educators of the AP curriculum suggests that the power of white victors still has sway over the record of history.
Bottom row (L-R): Thelma Mothershed, Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Gloria Ray; Top row (L-R): Jefferson Thomas, Melba Pattillo, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Daisy Bates (NAACP President), Ernest Green, 1957. (Credit: Everett Collection Historical/Alamy Stock Photo)