Contested Narratives and the Power of Public History
The more we attempt to ignore the past's impact on our contemporary world, the stronger those effects become.
The Public History in Authoritarian Times symposium organized by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition (GLC) and sponsored by the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute, provided a forum for over a dozen experts to discuss recent attacks on public history and showcase perspectives on various historical reckonings. The program offered insight into navigating public history in a time where history in the classroom and in a variety of historical institutions, including the Smithsonian and the National Park Service, are under attack.
“We may be losing track, now, of how many history wars we face,” David W. Blight, Sterling Professor of History at Yale and GLC Director asserted in his opening remarks. He drew on Toni Morrison’s 1993 Nobel Lecture and the idea of resisting “tongue-suicide” in the fight for public history, invoking how discussions around public history—like this symposium— are a crucial tool against oppression and control.
The symposium’s first panel, “Comparative Perspectives on Contested History in Public Spaces,” corroborated Blight’s point, emphasizing different methods of memorializing abandoned or hidden histories as a way to defend against attacks on public history. Jennifer Allen, Associate Professor of History at Yale, remarked on how public history projects can be used to memorialize historical reckonings, pointing to expansive public memorials like the Stolpersteine Project, a decentralized memorial that commemorates the persecution of Jews and other minority groups during the Holocaust.
Reflecting on these discussions, Giuseppe DiMassa '28 shared that “the panel reminded me of both the necessity of remembering humanity's darkest times, and never assuming that they are gone and over. He added that “globally encroaching authoritarianism makes this task especially difficult.”
The symposium’s second panel “The Smithsonian Institution and the National Park Service, Here and Now,” highlighted panelists with experience in the spheres of museums and outdoor spaces, giving context to attacks against public historical institutions and inspiring audience members to support the interpretive work offered at national parks.
Panelists like Gerry Seavo James, Deputy Director of the Sierra Club Outdoors for All Campaign, emphasized how parks are places for storytelling and community, describing his experience connecting segregated park spaces in Kentucky. Chuck Sams, former Director of the National Park Service, spoke about being the first Native American NPS Director and a U.S. Navy veteran and emphasized how national parks aim to present multiple perspectives through visitor centers and other educational initiatives.
These discussions are made significant by the governmental tendencies to obscure history, an idea emphasized by Stephen A. Small, Professor of the Graduate School Department of African American Studies at the University of California-Berkeley. He reflected on how different countries have represented slavery as a celebration of empire and national achievement, yet he also recognized how collective mobilization in the past thirty years has challenged those narratives.
Our parks are a direct reflection of our democracy.
Other panelists spoke about how to fight against political attempts to undermine historian’s professional expertise like the March 2025 Executive Order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” and declining trust in museums. Sarah Weicksel, Executive Director of the American Historical Association, stressed the importance of educating the public about what historians and museum professionals actually do.
Chad Williams, Chair of American History at Boston University, agreed—arguing that the struggle for public history is also the struggle for the “very soul of America.”
DiMassa reflected on the symposium’s themes by highlighting the nation’s conflicting approaches to historical memory. “The last [presidential] administration erected a memorial for Emmett Till in Greenwood, Mississippi,” he noted. “The current administration claims that the National Museum of African American History and Culture focuses too much on the negatives—including slavery—of American history.”
For DiMassa, this tension underscores the stakes of public memory today. “The great irony of history, and the reason that I study it, is that ignoring its lessons is possible,” he continued. “Yet the more we attempt to ignore the past's impact on our contemporary world, the stronger those effects become.”
Story written by Thy Luong ’28, student writer for the MacMillan Center.