The Place of Shame in American History
“Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame,” President Trump said in his March 27, 2025 Executive Order on “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” He focused on the need for the Smithsonian Institution and the Department of Interior to reverse what he labeled a “factually baseless ideology aimed at diminishing American achievement” and indicated his commitment to “honoring America’s extraordinary heritage and building a sense of national pride.” On August 19th he faulted the Smithsonian specifically “where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”
Unfortunately, this critique ignores the extensive celebration of the contributions of diverse Americans in every Smithsonian museum including the contributions of African Americans in the National Museum of African American History and Culture in such diverse areas as art, music, stage, screen, sports, religion, education, politics, design, and the advance of civil rights. Beyond that, the President’s words challenge us to respond to the charge that shame has little or no place in the experience of American history. Americans, the President says, should feel uplifted not ashamed by the American past.
There are at least three problems with viewing American history using this either-or framework that requires shame or pride. History, including American history, provides evidence for and needs both.
First, one can feel shame about certain events and people in our history and at the same time see pride in them too. The Declaration of Independence is arguably the seminal example. In championing its unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness we can also acknowledge that its framers denied them to enslaved Africans. We can take pride in the achievements of people such as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and James Madison but we can also regret that they owned slaves.
Second, one can feel shame for what America did in parts of its history without feeling personally ashamed for what, after all, happened decades or centuries before we were born. To deny the ability of today’s Americans to make this distinction is to deny they are intelligent, moral, and capable of being educated and making sound decisions about our history. Even children, with the support of caregivers and teachers, can realize that mistakes in the past don’t bring shame on them today.
Third, feeling shameful about parts of our past often has been an important precursor to improving democracy and with those changes instilling the pride the President seeks. That sense of shame (whose synonyms include remorse, regret and sadness) can actually propel people to apologize, pass essential legislation and improve education of the young – all to rebuild social unity and strengthen the American experiment in self-government. The nation’s regret over slavery led to the Reconstruction Amendments, Supreme Court cases knocking down racial barriers, the civil rights movement and a public apology for the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments that used African Americans as medical subjects without their informed consent. The 19th Amendment extended the franchise to women to bring them fully into decision making about their own and the nation’s future. The 2009 Congressional apology to the Native Peoples of America for “years of official depredations, ill-conceived policies, and the breaking of covenants” has been coupled with essential recognition of their history and contributions in the National Museum of the American Indian. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 acknowledged the “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership” and provided reparations for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
The United States is not alone in efforts to turn shame into healing and reform – work that honors human dignity and shared moral values. “Working through the past” – Vergangenheitsbewältigung – has been the German effort to reckon with and never forget Nazi evils. South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was one effort to acknowledge the crimes and begin the healing after the end of apartheid. Poland’s Museum of the Second World War and its exhibit about the murder of Jews by Poles in the town of Jedwabne is a similar effort, derailed temporarily but now back on track despite the Law and Justice party’s claim that it constituted the “pedagogy of shame.”
It is essential in our democracy to instill pride in Americans and celebrate our achievements. In this President Trump is correct. It is also essential to recall our moral failures and to use the sadness and regret – the shame - we feel regarding parts of our country’s past to strengthen the nation’s moral and practical health.
As writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin said: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Facing history with facts and reason is an important task, even when some of its stories hurt.
Photo Credit: Smithsonian Museum
