Part of dismantling white supremacy in America involves changing how we teach history, telling the truth about things like colonization & racism in the women's suffrage movement. That's a major goal of my new series HISTORY SMASHERS. (thread)
penguinrandomhouse.com/series/RLD/his…
penguinrandomhouse.com/series/RLD/his…
It's important that we teach kids the value of primary sources - but also teach them to question those sources. Much of the Pilgrims' writing, for example, aims to justify the taking of land that had been home to Native people for thousands of years.
Stories painting the Pilgrims as scrappy and heroic survivors are part of America's founding myths - so they get repeated over and over. Even when they're not true. The traditional "First Thanksgiving" narrative is one of those myths.
And those made-up stories have been used throughout history, by white people trying to advance their own causes. Suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton made up an elaborate story about the Pilgrims' first Christmas that she shared in a big speech. NONE of it was true.
This is one of the graphic sections @dmeconis illustrated in HISTORY SMASHERS: MAYFLOWER.
ECS made it all up.
Here's the real deal.
It's so important that we share these stories with kids, that we question our historic heroes and heroines, and teach young people to be critical thinkers.
