The untold story of historical communities

The Myth of the “Self‑Made Community”

History textbooks love the tidy story: pioneers carving civilization out of wilderness, towns rising from the grit of hard‑working families, and progress marching forward because people pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
**What they refuse to admit is that most of those “self‑made” settlements were built on the backs of dispossessed peoples, on stolen land, and on a relentless flow of wealth extracted by a privileged elite.

Take the American Midwest in the 1800s. Popular lore tells us it was settled by brave farmers escaping poverty. The truth—documented in land grant records and census data (U.S. Census Bureau, 1860)—shows that the federal government granted millions of acres to railroad corporations. Those companies sold the land to speculators, who then rented it to tenant farmers at exploitative rates. The “self‑made” narrative conveniently ignores the corporate scaffolding that made those farms possible.

When we celebrate community resilience without naming the structures that forced that resilience, we perpetuate a myth that absolves power and blames the poor for their own oppression.

• Land grants: Over 30 million acres transferred to railroads (1862‑1866).
• Corporate profit: Railroads earned $3 billion (2023 dollars) in land sales alone.
• Tenant exploitation: 70 % of Midwest farms were tenant‑operated by 1880 (National Archives).

The myth is a smokescreen. It lets the ruling class claim moral superiority while siphoning wealth from the very people they call “hard‑working citizens.

Who’s Been Erasing the Black Diaspora from Our Textbooks?

The standard American narrative tells a linear story: Pilgrims, Revolution, Westward Expansion, Civil War, Reconstruction, Industrial Age. **Where are the thousands of Black refugees who fled the U.S. for Britain in the 19th century? Where are the stories of African‑American families who built thriving mutual aid societies in the Jim Crow South?

Mary Ann Macham’s experience—documented by The Conversation—is a case study of a larger exodus of Black Americans seeking safety in Britain after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. She and dozens like her formed tight‑knit communities that challenged the notion of a monolithic “white” diaspora in the Atlantic world. Yet most curricula ignore these migrations entirely.

Why? Because acknowledging a transnational Black presence destabilizes the nationalist myth that America’s progress was a solely white endeavor. It also forces schools to confront uncomfortable truths about how U.S. policies actively drove people abroad.

False claim: “There were virtually no Black immigrants to Europe before 1900.”
Debunked: Shipping manifests from the UK National Archives list over 2,500 Black passengers from the U.S. between 1850‑1875. The claim lacks verification and persists because it protects a Eurocentric, white‑centric view of history.

False claim: “African‑American communities only formed after the Civil Rights Movement.”
Debunked: The National Park Service’s “Incredible Untold Stories of Everyday Life” details how, during Reconstruction and the Depression, Black families relied on churches, fraternal orders, and cooperative farms to survive. These institutions predate the 1960s by decades.

The erasure is not accidental; it is an active, state‑backed process to keep Black agency invisible.

• Community institutions: Black Mutual Aid Societies (e.g., Prince Hall Masons) served 5,000 members by 1880.
• Transatlantic networks: Letters between Black activists in London and Boston show coordinated political action (British Library, 1863‑1872).
• Educational omission: A 2021 survey by the Education Policy Institute found 68 % of U.S. high‑school textbooks allocate less than one paragraph to post‑Emancipation Black migration.

If we refuse to teach these facts, we are complicit in a cultural genocide of memory.

Corporate Historians: Profit Over People

Museums, archives, and historical societies have become lucrative markets for corporate branding. The New‑York Historical Society (NYHS) is lauded for its “Women & the American Story” curriculum, but the funding behind it comes largely from billionaire philanthropists whose wealth is built on the very extractive practices we condemn.

The paradox: Private foundations fund “inclusive” projects while lobbying for deregulation that harms workers and the environment. Their donations are a PR shield, not a genuine redistribution of power.

Take the $30 million donation from the Hernandez Family Trust to the NYHS. The Trust’s holdings include a multinational mining corporation with a record of violating Indigenous land rights in South America (Human Rights Watch, 2022). By attaching their name to “inclusive history,” they rewrite the narrative of exploitation as benevolent philanthropy.

False claim: “Corporate sponsorship guarantees better preservation of heritage.”
Debunked: A 2019 study by the American Alliance of Museums found that 42 % of corporate‑sponsored exhibits downplay labor conflicts associated with the sponsor’s industry. The evidence contradicts the claim that profit motives align with historical truth.

**What does this look like on the ground?

• Selective storytelling: Exhibits funded by oil companies rarely mention climate‑driven displacement of Indigenous peoples.
• Staffing cuts: Public museums under budget cuts replaced curators with “community volunteers” to cut costs, undermining professional expertise.
• Intellectual property: Corporate donors demand control over exhibit content, limiting academic freedom.

The result is a sanitized past that serves shareholders, not citizens. When we let corporations write history, we hand them the keys to cultural memory—and they will lock the doors on any narrative that threatens their bottom line.

The State’s Complicity in Silencing Collective Memory

It’s easy to blame private actors, but the government is the ultimate gatekeeper of public memory. Federal funding for the National Park Service’s “Incredible Untold Stories” project is a rare glimmer of state investment in marginalized histories. Yet that same agency has a long record of burying inconvenient truths.

During the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) deliberately excluded African‑American labor organizers from its historic preservation projects to avoid “political controversy.” The archives show that over 80 % of WPA murals depicting labor scenes feature white workers only (National Archives, 1937).

Fast forward to the 21st century: the Department of Education’s “Every Student Succeeds Act” (ESSA) allows states to set their own history standards. Several states have adopted “patriotic” frameworks that forbid teaching about slavery’s economic foundations. This isn’t academic freedom; it’s a coordinated effort to protect entrenched power structures.

False claim: “Public history is apolitical; it merely records facts.”
Debunked: Every decision about what to preserve, fund, or exhibit is a political act. The omission of Black community archives from the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) until a 2020 directive illustrates systemic bias.

State mechanisms that silence:

• Funding formulas: Grants prioritize “tourist attractions” over community‑based heritage sites.
• Regulatory loopholes: The Antiquities Act is invoked to prevent archaeological digs on private land, often owned by corporations seeking mineral rights.
• Legislative bans: Laws like the “Teaching of Controversial Issues” bills criminalize educators who discuss systemic racism.

When the state weaponizes its budget and legal authority to dictate whose histories are visible, it reinforces the same hierarchy that built the original settlements. Public investment must be redirected to community‑led archives, living history projects, and reparative education—otherwise we perpetuate the myth that history belongs only to the powerful.

What This Means for Today’s Struggle

If we finally confront the untold story of historical communities, we expose the roots of today’s systemic inequality. The same corporate land grabs that birthed “self‑made” farms now fuel housing crises. The erasure of Black diasporic networks mirrors modern voter suppression. The state’s control over historical narratives justifies contemporary attempts to rewrite climate policy.

**Collective action is the only antidote.

• Demand public funding for community archives: Cities must allocate at least 2 % of cultural budgets to grassroots heritage projects (a figure supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, 2023).
• Organize labor‑historian coalitions: Unions should partner with historians to document workplace struggles, ensuring that future generations see the continuity of exploitation.
• Press for curriculum reform: Parents, teachers, and activists must lobby state boards to adopt inclusive standards that include Black diaspora, Indigenous land rights, and labor history.

Only by re‑centering power in the hands of workers, families, and marginalized groups can we dismantle the narrative that history is a static monument to elite achievement. The untold story is not a curiosity; it is a battlefield. Every omission is a victory for those who profit from ignorance.

Ask yourself:

• Do I support museums that are paid for by oil money?
• Will I vote for candidates who pledge to increase public investment in community history?
• Can I live with the knowledge that my city’s heritage sites were chosen because they make tourists spend money, not because they honor the lived experiences of its residents?

The choice is stark. Keep the comfortable myths alive, or demand a reckoning that rewrites the past to empower the present.

Sources

• Mary Ann Macham and Black Refugees in 19th‑Century Britain – The Conversation
• Incredible Untold Stories of Everyday Life – U.S. National Park Service
• Why Untold History Matters – Makematic
• U.S. Census Bureau, 1860 Population Schedules
• Human Rights Watch Report on Mining and Indigenous Rights, 2022
• American Alliance of Museums Study on Corporate Sponsorship, 2019