Wonderful! Bishop E.W. Jackson Sr., a Black pastor, author, and great-grandson of enslaved people, has delivered a powerful rebuke to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
His message is clear: “…efforts to weaponize history against the United States amount to anti-American indoctrination, and those who share his heritage have a special duty to reject it.”
Jackson, whose ancestors endured slavery, rejects the narrative that paints America as uniquely oppressive. “If you were born an American, you hit the proverbial lottery,” he insists, adding that our country remains “the greatest nation on earth,” offering more opportunity and hope than any other place on the planet.
For Jackson, the real tragedy is not America’s imperfect past but the deliberate effort to make citizens bitter toward the nation that abolished slavery, expanded rights, and lifted millions—including his own family—into freedom and possibility.
The flashpoint is the museum’s leadership under Director Anthea Hartig. A resurfaced 2025 presentation shows Hartig describing history as a “prime tool of social justice” and linking America’s “long and violent racial history” to ongoing demands for reparations and “restorative justice.”
Jackson’s response is blunt: “….history should present facts and let people draw their own conclusions. Turning it into a tool for producing anger and resentment is not education—it is ideology.” A recent White House report, “Saving America’s Story,” documented what it called the museum’s “ideological capture,” prompting congressional scrutiny and renewed debate over taxpayer funding.
Jackson has been sounding this alarm for years. In 2015, he challenged the National Portrait Gallery for including Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger among civil rights figures, citing her eugenics advocacy, racism, and praise for Hitler. He traces much of the broader problem to the lasting influence of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, a work he calls a “polemic against America” that still shapes classrooms and cultural institutions.
What makes Jackson’s testimony especially compelling is his personal story. Raised in a broken home and foster care, he nevertheless describes a life “wonderfully blessed”—first by God’s grace, and second by living in a country where people can dream, strive, and fulfill their gifts. That lived experience undercuts the claim that America is defined primarily by its sins. Instead, he argues, no nation has more consistently affirmed human dignity or created space for human flourishing.
Descendants of slaves who refuse to let their ancestors’ suffering be used as a permanent indictment of the United States are performing a vital service. They protect the full American heritage—both its failures and its extraordinary capacity for self-correction and progress.
