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The erasure of US history is the second biggest national sin.

The erasure of US history is the second biggest national sin.

Tana Ganeva's avatar
Tana Ganeva
Mar 27, 2023
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The erasure of US history is the second biggest national sin.
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Last week, I went to Jackson, Mississippi, to report a story about the hostile takeover of the 83% Black city by the majority white Republican state Senate. They’re appointing new judges, rather than allowing Jackson’s residents to vote for them, as is the norm. And they’re expanding the state-controlled Capitol police force to all of Jackson. In the six months since their juristiction was extended to the area around the Capitol building, they’ve shot four Black people, killing 25-year-old Jaylen Lewis during a traffic stop.

I went to the Capitol building for scene or whatever and observed something curious. This is the story of Jackson, Mississippi told by the state seat of power:

Notice anyone missing?

How about the 55% of the population that was enslaved pre-Civil War?

Or the story of civil rights sit-ins and protests?

Or Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist who was the first Black student at the University of Mississippi and who was murdered by a Klansman? Nope.

There is, however, a massive statue outside of the building honoring “Our Women of the Confederacy.”

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