The movement to suppress elements of American history extends well beyond Oklahoma. According to an analysis by The Washington Post, more than two dozen states have adopted laws that make it easier to remove books from school libraries and to prevent certain teaching on race, gender and sexuality. In 2023, PEN America, which defends freedom of speech, reported that book bans in U.S. public school classrooms and libraries had surged 33 percent over the previous school year, with more than 3,000 recorded removals; among them are classics by the Nobel laureate Toni Morrison (banned in 30 school districts) and Margaret Atwood (banned in 34). School curriculums are being revised to mask discomfiting truths — so much so that in Florida students will now be taught that some African Americans benefited from slavery because it gave them “skills.”
After the world premiere of “Killers of the Flower Moon” at the Cannes Film Festival, Matt Pinnell, Oklahoma’s lieutenant governor and a Republican, encouraged audiences to see the movie. (His state had even provided financial incentives for the production.) A reporter asked him why, if people from around the world should watch the film, the subject can’t be taught without fear in Oklahoma’s public schools. Though he acknowledged a need to clarify the law, in the five months since the festival, the state legislature has not done so.
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If such policies continue, new generations of Americans will be deprived of the wisdom of history — all of history: the stirring, the cautionary, the truth. As Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. put it, Oklahomans cannot “move forward unless we understand how we got here.”
The same is true for all of us.
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