Heather McGee

And so that is part of what is lost, not just for black families who, you know, may take Juneteenth in a national park as a time to connect to our own history.

But when the administration tries to erase the parts of our history that show how far we've come, and of course, I think in a self-interested way, show exactly where they'd like to take us again, they're also taking out the parts where we really understand who the American heroes are.

You know, I think in our 250th anniversary, we should be...

celebrating new unsung heroes of all races.

I think of Viola Liuzzo, right, who was 39 and marched in 65 from Selma to Montgomery and was killed by three Klan members.

She was a white woman who gave her life in support of civil rights.

I think of Gilberto Garena Valentin, who was a Puerto Rican civil rights activist.

Yuri Kochiyama,

who was an Asian American civil rights activist, worked closely with Malcolm X, right?

These are people who are part of how we got to this place today.

And most people don't know their names.

Most people are therefore kind of robbed of the moral choice to identify with people of various racial and ethnic backgrounds who throughout history were

when it wasn't easy, chose to stand on the side of the oppressed and to move our country forward.

That's the kind of history we should be celebrating today.

Oh, I mean, the list goes on and on.

I mean, reading books about, you know, racial history from military libraries, a lot of the military heroes who are women and people of color have been stripped from the Defense Department's, you know, sort of celebrations.

I

I do believe it will be temporary.

We've seen the polling data that shows time after time that Americans don't want history to be erased.

They don't want books to be banned.