20 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JULY 2-8, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com to suggest that U.S. volunteers were inspired by abolitionist zeal. Most joined the army in order to restore the Union. As the war dragged on, however, many came to see freeing Blacks as a way to undermine the authority of Southern planters and bring the war to a quicker conclusion. One of the common questions in letters and diaries as Sherman’s men moved through the deep South was why whites in the region joined plantation owners in opposition to the U.S. To Americans encountering Southern culture for the first time, it was evident that the white underclass was fighting to keep themselves subordinate to the wealthy. They did not instantly grasp that, in general, white Southerners rich and poor shared the same cultural perspective toward Blacks. Racism strains another mythologized era, that of the “greatest generation.” NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw coined the term in his 1998 book by the same name, recognizing the American men and women who came through the Great Depression and found World War II—both significant achievements. Recall, however, that this was also a time when much of America was segregated. In 1942, the same President Franklin D. Roosevelt who cherished the “four freedoms” in radio fireside chats (and who was called a “traitor to his class” by patrician neighbors for the New Deal), signed an executive order rounding up Japanese on the West Coast—the majority of them American citizens, many from Monterey County—and herding them into camps of mass incarceration. While factories were hiring frantically to keep pace with wartime production demands, adding around 6.6 million women to the workforce, one company stated that Blacks were only suitable for janitorial positions. A political cartoon at the time portrayed a white Southerner saying, “Let Hitler win, he hates Negroes too.” Of course, the problem was not limited to the Southern states. Nine whites and 23 Blacks died during a Detroit race riot in 1943 (17 of the Black Americans died as a result of police violence). Roosevelt had to send troops to Philadelphia in 1944 when white transit company employees went on strike after the city hired eight Black trolley operators. These are facts Trump wishes to obscure. In response to Trump’s Executive Order 14253, the American Historical Association issued a statement advising that the purpose of historical study “is neither criticism nor celebration.” Instead, it is to understand the past, to understand change and to provide a foundation to shape the future—flaws and all. That Washington, Jefferson and many other signees of a document of self-evident statements such as “All men are created equal” owned enslaved Black people is well known. And some people do view this fact through a present lens, arguing that we remove such figures from the nation’s pantheon. Asked to speak in 1852 on Independence Day, escaped former slave Frederick Douglass told those gathered in Rochester, New York, “What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us?” Douglass lashed out at the hypocrisy of the nation, dismissing the celebration of independence as incomplete, the imagined greatness of America as mere vanity and its appeal to liberty as empty rhetoric. Yet he praised those who led the Revolution. “I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic,” he said. “The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too, great enough to give frame to a great age…The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration.” America’s preference for a mythologized version of its past is not a recent development. A minister with a flair for writing, Mason Weems, invented the story of a young George Washington chopping down his father’s cherry tree. But his biography—The Life of Washington, published in 1800—proved so popular that the tall tale made it to the American vernacular. The notion of a contrite pre-teen Father of Our Country, ax in hand, saying “I cannot tell a lie,” is a harmless lark. But false narratives can have a detrimental effect not only on our grasp of history, but also on beliefs that guide decision-making on state and national levels. For example, statements in support of a small central government are most often attributed to Jefferson, although “That government is best which governs least” is actually cited in Henry David Thoreau’s 1849 essay Civil Disobedience, in which he asserts that an individual’s assumptions of right and wrong should guide behavior, rather than legislation. Thoreau objected to slavery and was jailed briefly for refusing to pay taxes that might help fund the war with Mexico, which he saw as imperialistic in nature. There are many who follow this thread, believing that reducing government’s reach and spending is beneficial for both individual liberty and the economy, and there are points to be made toward that idea. The conservative-leaning Hoover Institution credits deregulation and lower taxes for the boom that started in 1982 and lasted, by its count, about 15 years. The author of that analysis, Martin Anderson, calls it “the greatest economic boom in history.” A bit of hyperbole there. Recall that American prosperity soared from 1940 to 1970, a much longer span. Economic expansion was sparked by government spending—war production, to begin with, followed by the construction of interstate highways and the aerospace program—and fueled by consumer clout. And keep in mind that during this rising tide, labor unions were strong and the gap between executive pay and worker salaries was quite narrow. According to the Economic Policy Institute, CEOs received 281 times more than a typical employee in 2024. In 1965, the difference was 21 percent. Of course, there are dips, even in periods of growth, and many factors influence economies. There were C BROWNE / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM Civil War re-enactors representing the United States stage an attack. While slavery was the root cause of the Civil War, many soldiers from the U.S. fought to restore the union. Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave who became a leader in the abolitionist movement. In speeches he would remind people that Independence Day did not apply to all. “Facts are stubborn things.” GEORGE KENDALL WARREN
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