They equate acknowledging the sins of our past with being unpatriotic. Just the opposite is true; learning from history’s hard truths and transgressions is the act of an enlightened patriot.
My book, “Life Painted Red: The True Story of Corabelle Fellows and How Her Life on the Dakota Frontier Became a National Scandal,” was released Sept. 1.
In a time when literary classics are being challenged, banned or censored; when parents, teachers and school administrators are struggling over the history to teach; when some politicians think they’re the arbiters of expression, the biggest danger comes when we sanitize or even deny the uncomfortable and the shameful in history.