22 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JULY 2-8, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com also notable disparities. For one, wealth tended to flow more readily to the white male workforce. That was changing during the 1980s “long boom.” And the punishing 70-percent top tax rate remained in place until the early ’80s. Like the economy, history is complicated—and bumpy. Over time, we have come to terms with some aspects of the nation’s past. The racist impulse that led to the burning of a Japanese fishing village in Pacific Grove in 1906 has perhaps slackened. We acknowledge the displacement or massacre of native peoples. Indeed, an effort to return land ownership to Indigenous people is well-funded in Monterey County. This is what progress looks like, but it requires effort. Kelseyville, California is a Lake County town named in honor of an early settler who so brutalized the Pomo residents that a group of Pomo men determined to settle the matter, killing Andrew Kelsey and another abusive rancher. In response, U.S. Army troops swept in and slaughtered much of the area’s Pomo population. Until 2006, Kelseyville’s high school athletics mascot was the Indians. Lake County resident Clayton Duncan, a Pomo elder, successfully campaigned for the school to drop the mascot (now the Knights). He continues in efforts to address the town’s name. Given the attitude of Catholic missions in the 18th and 19th centuries toward native peoples of Monterey County, a similar effort was made in 2021 to drop Carmel High School’s mascot, the Padres. It failed. America’s historic landscape is sometimes one of pendulum swings— progressive activists seeking reform, resistant activists pushing back, eventually resulting in change. The labor reform movement that began in the late 1800s and continued through the 1930s was met with violent crackdowns against unions. The alliance of big business and big labor forged during World War II was a launchpad to prosperity. We elevate Rosie the Riveter to a patriotic icon. But women in this country had limited rights to labor and property, fought for 72 years following the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention to earn the right to vote. In the aftermath of World War II, television sitcoms once again glamorized the domestic ideal. On the verge of an Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s, conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly became a successful voice against ratification. The “woke” concept, which raises awareness of racial discrimination and social justice, would seem unlikely to meet opposition. But the conservative Independent Institute cites it as “a cruel and dangerous cult.” From the beginning, Americans have held diverse ideas about the nation and its course. The Declaration of Independence was the result of compromise, with dozens of edits and the elimination of chunks of text. In a postwar letter, Adams estimated that no more than two-thirds of the people had been committed to the Revolution. Loyalist militia units joined the Redcoats in the fight against independence. It was the same with the Constitution just over a decade later. In his closing statement, Franklin urged delegates to approve the document, with commentary that sums up we, the people, asserting a reality Trump and others would wish to avoid: “When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views. From such an assembly, can a perfect production be expected?” Franklin gave his assent to the Constitution because, he said, “I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best.” He then asked delegates to join him and, “On this occasion doubt a little of [your] own infallibility.” True achievement and greatness come from this. One only needs to read American history to find imperfect people taking a stand and, through division, making the nation a better place. It’s not hard to list flawed heroes, their innovations or to chart the jagged, crooked course from July 4, 1776 to July 4, 2026. As a people, Americans have overcome much. But as we all should understand, there is more to accomplish. Whitewashing past evils and human shortcomings makes the leaders and activists of our time look poor by comparison. No wonder so many people believe greatness was in America’s past. Shortly after Trump issued executive order 14253, an employee removed the profile of abolitionist hero Harriet Tubman, who escaped slavery, from the National Park Service website. People took notice and were outraged, causing the park service officials to restore Tubman to her rightful place. Two-hundred and fifty years on, the pendulum continues to swing. But facts are still stubborn things. “The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too… yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration.” White men try to pull a Black man from a bus during the 1943 Detroit race riot. Almost 35 people died and 675 were injured. More than 3,000 troops were sent to the city to quell the violence. J. HOWARD MILLER Rosie the Riveter became an iconic figure during World War II, when some 6.6 million women entered the workforce. After the war, however, the stay-at-home sitcom mom replaced the factory worker as the ideal image. Although women won the right to vote in 1920, a campaign for an equal rights amendment failed six decades later.
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