Historians, history teachers, and scholars have always had knowledge of the historical foundation of the United States of America. The great historians, such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Edward Gibbon, David Hume, Karl Marx, Alexis de Tocqueville, and many others had stories of their own. However, some historians existed within the agitational organizations but failed to receive recognition even to the highly educated residents of the United States. In fact, most students have not known any major agitational figures or organizations throughout their whole lives. A few of them could only recognize prominent activists, agitators, or protestors, such as A. Philip Randolph, Dorothy Day, Ernesto Galarza, Joe Hill, Paul Robeson, Saul Alinsky, and the like. Most likely, many of these students had not learned some important during the invasion of the New World, the Homestead strike, the Bonus March, the Memorial Day Massacre, and various other prominent events in U.S. history. Surprisingly, numerous students might say that they had not learned anything about these agitators. This situation did not make sense since some parts of history appeared in the contexts of history books. One idea could explain this phenomenon, which would be the general lack of knowledge. This condition would result mainly in their marginal disclosure in history books, in academic institutions of all levels, and in the broadcast and print media. Though history authors and educators thrived to introduce the important and key events in the American history, they failed to disseminate important yet troubling historic features in order to avoid extensive treatments of people who agitated for major social and political change in the country.
The disappearance of the agitational figures or organizations was due to the emphasis of highlighting the historical figures and the positive events in historical contexts. In fact, historians were tempted to glamorize American history for the American benefits by accidentally ignoring or intentionally omitting more troubling features of history. In this case, histories, which needed to be written, remained concealed through time and space. At some points, these historical accounts were subjects to forgetting and rejection due to poor memory recall or intentional neglect. Historians, in general, should stay away from telling the lies. According to James Loewen, who authored the book Lies My Teacher Told Me provided a significant idea of how historians and the people endeavored to emotionalize and glamorize the American history. Historical books and history authors placed the American history into a constructive revolution on the key events and historical figures in the American historical landscape. In doing so, they tried to omit more troubling features of history. It seemed that these historians who failed to enforce justice, neutrality, and objectivity nosedived to provide equal treatments of the segments of people in the chronicles. Agitated historians and protesters hoped to revive the concealed truths due to the political pressures and social changes. The political implication on the distorted history unveiled the truth that American historians and writers tried to editorialize events to appear plausible and pleasant to their ears and interests. In effect, the departure of the agitational figures or organizations happened due to the importance of underlining the historical figures and the constructive events in historical perspectives. Araújo and Sepúlveda dos Santos argued that historians should not pontificate what would be acceptable and interesting but that they had to sermonize the truth on an objective level. Indeed, historians failed to publish vital historic features due to political and social slants in the country.
At some points, American history has been subdued in several wits. Some of these events have been kept a secret. Historians had to understand their roles as observers of the civilization and its pertinent cultural and experience. None tried to frame the events that defined, described, and detailed the inflicted conditions of physical pain, the acts of torture, the excruciating moments of poverty, and extreme hunger experience of the peasants and Indians during the civil war (Araújo and Sepúlveda dos Santos 39). The scars on the body of the slaves and the tattoos of their painful experiences of tortures could be just a memory, but their histories remained unknown in full lengths. As a result, disgust and hatred became the fundamental consequences of these realities because agitators and social protesters in this country wanted to be heard. Araújo and Sepúlveda dos Santos asserted that historians and observers of time and events should be neutral and objective to report the past, not to reconstruct the past on the basis of personal agenda and interests. For instance, the Homestead Act during the Civil War in 1862 contributed to the problems of the Native Americans. In the Homestead Act, any adult citizens in the U.S. could receive 160 acres of charted administration land. The United States government required these land recipients to cultivate their lands and to build houses. This Act became one of the most persistent happenings in the westward expansion of the United States by forcing and pushing the Native Americans away from their own lands. The Native Americans were required to sign contracts against their will and suffered at the hands of the White people. Violence befell under their noses and many of these Native Americans had to hide themselves to the deep recesses of the lands to survive. And yet, the American histories failed to record these events. Whether historians forgot to archive and include these in the historical events or they ignored these events in the world histories, they still miscarried to tell the truth. Academics and scholars inquired about convalescing disturbing circumstances such as the bombing of Hiroshima, the fratricidal massacres in Yugoslavia, the Holocaust, and the Vietnam War. Even if several authors and their classic studies acknowledged the important aspects of history, they always had their ways to deal with the past involving their historical interests, powers, and acts of exclusion. According to Maria Paula Nascimento Araújo and Myrian Sepúlveda dos Santos, contributing authors from the Portuguese Journal, historical events uncovered and untold in the history books underwent the processes of selection and other elements extending beyond the scope of human reason (Araújo and Sepúlveda dos Santos 9). They argued that it would be important to find a balance between obsessions with the past and attempts to impose forgetting to clearly identify where they stood. Historians should extend their understanding that histories needed to be factual and true. If ever history became a subject to memory and forgetting, historians should circumvent writing, idealizing, and exaggerating the events by putting the American accounts on the positive spin or on the pedestal. In the end, they should emphasize their limits, as well as their ethical inferences, when they engaged in the historical narratives.
Moreover, the intertwining of some interpretations of history, memory, and forgetting transpired due to the concepts of interests, power, and exclusion. Historians could not escape from glamorizing the historical events that caught their interests. This notion was different from the intent of ignoring those events especially the tragic and brutal ones. Historians opted to forget events or chose to ignore them due to the cruel and unspeakable tales of horror. As they tried to sentimentalize events and accounts based on the taste of their criteria and acceptable events, they often inflated the narratives to emphasize the events. In other words, historians played a great role in dismissing other agitators and protesters including the historic battles and circumstances to the point that they remained unconcealed in historical texts. Such a concept departed from the idea of keeping the balance between the obsession of the past and the attempts to forget some events in the distant past (Araújo and Sepúlveda dos Santos 43). Most likely, there existed a barrier between the two; however, the common and obvious reasons of the omission of the historical events of agitators and protestors were due to obsessions and preconceptions to idealize American histories. In this view, critics and readers argued on the veracity of histories written and digested by millions of readers and generations (Araújo and Sepúlveda dos Santos 43). If historical accounts were selected for the purpose of sentimentalizing the American events, then possible distortion and misrepresentation of histories happened (Araújo and Sepúlveda dos Santos 44). It meant that historians needed to write histories as these events happened in black and white. Araújo and Sepúlveda dos Santos asserted that human civilization and its history should receive fair written records and reports. Historians like journalists and reporters should not ignore events, whether brutal or cruel, because they did not like them to be written. It meant that they needed to reveal the truth considering the bias of the human boundaries and conditions (Araújo and Sepúlveda dos Santos 44). Araújo and Sepúlveda dos Santos underscored their arguments that historians should not allow their personal views to cloud their judgments and their roles to tell the truths. In the end, historians regardless of their cultural, ethnic, political, religious, and social backgrounds and views should learn to enable themselves to create more efficient ways to control and stay firm to stand for the truths – a promise to uphold in life.
Indeed, history authors and educators failed to publicize vital yet disconcerting features in history. They tried to avoid the extensive treatments of people who agitated for major social and political change in the country due to the concepts of interests, power, and exclusion. Historians, history teachers, and scholars chose to acknowledge the historical foundation of the United States of America and view the American contexts through rose-tinted glasses. Critics and readers did not know if those historians, such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Edward Gibbon, David Hume, Karl Marx, Alexis de Tocqueville, and many others did the same process of distorting realities. It might be an assumption that they were. If historians chose to write events based on the elements of interests, power, and exclusion, then it could be true that histories might not be factual and true. If this idea would be the case, then a few of activists, agitators, or protestors, such as A. Philip Randolph, Dorothy Day, Ernesto Galarza, Joe Hill, Paul Robeson, Saul Alinsky, and the like would stand to bear the truth. It might be the right time to dismantle false narratives and erroneous reporting. It might be wise to describe the truth and the real invasion of the New World, the Homestead strike, the Bonus March, the Memorial Day Massacre, and various other notable actions in U.S. history. This phenomenon happened due to the general lack of knowledge would result mainly in their peripheral leak in a history book. In the end, the role of the historians was to write, report, and circulate significant yet displeasing history in the country.