US History (forgotten)
US History (forgotten)US History (forgotten)US History (forgotten)US History (forgotten)
US History (forgotten)
By M Susan Broussard
US History (forgotten)
This website came in response to the realization of gaping holes in my own personal knowledge of basic American history. These untold stories weren't even taught to friends who were history majors.
I am a painter, not a historian, and for the key sources of my research I sought out physical archival documents and materials to serve as credible evidence of past events. Ironically, the U.S. Library of Congress archives preserves the mother lode of artifacts from our "forgotten" history: documents, manuscripts, photos, posters, engravings, letters, speeches, proclamations and more.
US history paints a picture informing us on how our nation got to where we are today. History can never be rewritten. We have no choice but to live with our past. In this new age of disinformation, and as frightening and unpleasant as the truth can be, the unvarnished truth about American history is our best hope of guiding us to shaping a better world.
Each section/page in this website’s menu represents various historical topics: Columbus, Slavery, Natives, Civil War, Reconstruction, Asian Americans and the Civil Rights Era. The Resources section provides a reading list for adults and a separate list of books appropriate for teaching children. Also listed on the Resources page are organizations, services, museums, cultural centers and more.
This website will remain a work in progress with new content continually added, so please keep checking back. Many thanks in your interest.
About the art piece:
US History (forgotten) is a 4x4 foot collage of oil paintings and mixed media on canvas. (Oil paint, canvas, feathers, leather, twine, thread, ribbon, fabric, rice paper, wire, cotton bolls, sewing pins, safety pins, paper clips, binder clip, brass nail, paper tag and duct tape.
48 x 48 inches (121.9 x 121.9 cm)
Some rudiments of American history never learned in school:
Columbus and Slavery
Columbus and Slavery
Columbus and Slavery
Many are surprised that Columbus never set foot in North America. Columbus deserves credit as being the father of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, with its extreme violence. Why do we have a US national holiday in his honor?
Natives
Columbus and Slavery
Columbus and Slavery
What became of our indigenous people living coast to coast? Some history books try to whitewash US history by claiming devastation due to disease. It is shocking to read the hateful and callous words in speeches, even by some of our most revered US presidents, documenting their genocide.
Founding Fathers and Slavery
Founding Fathers and Slavery
Founding Fathers and Slavery
Hundreds of landmark US.buildings, universities and churches - even the White House - were built with the literal blood, sweat and tears of enslaved people. Many US founding fathers accepted, practiced and defended racial slavery and built their fortunes using the free labor it provided.
The Civil War
Founding Fathers and Slavery
The Underground Railroad
Most Americans don't know that the Civil War was fought over slavery. The Confederacy's founders even spell it out in historical documents, yet our textbooks and schools fail to teach it.
The Underground Railroad
Founding Fathers and Slavery
The Underground Railroad
Arguably America's first great heroes, the Underground Railroad, was a clandestine network of routes and safe houses whereby enslaved persons, sometimes aided by abolitionists, risked everything to help tens of thousands escape to freedom.
Reconstruction and Jim Crow Laws
Jim Crow Laws targeting Asian Americans
Jim Crow Laws targeting Asian Americans
Emancipation was proclaimed, but freedom was still denied. Jim Crow laws targeted newly freed slaves, denying them the ability to assert their independence and gain economic autonomy. For generations Jim Crow laws continued to hamper the freedoms and upward mobility of non-white races and immigrants.
Jim Crow Laws targeting Asian Americans
Jim Crow Laws targeting Asian Americans
Jim Crow Laws targeting Asian Americans
California's Jim Crow laws restricted civil liberties and rights of Asian Americans: due process, employment, education, holding office, marriage, voting, owning property, where you could live, segregation, and more.
Forced Native Boarding Schools
Jim Crow Laws targeting Asian Americans
The 1921 Fire Bombing of Black Wall Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Perhaps our nation's earliest version of children in cages, the US government issued a “compulsory attendance” law authorizing federal officers to forcibly take Native children from their parents and adopted them out to white people.
The 1921 Fire Bombing of Black Wall Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma
The 1921 Fire Bombing of Black Wall Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma
The 1921 Fire Bombing of Black Wall Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa had a thriving, prosperous black community - until police literally annihilated it. Why do history books fail to mention this 35 block massacre and bombing?
Who are the four men carved in Mt. Rushmore?
The 1921 Fire Bombing of Black Wall Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Who are the four men carved in Mt. Rushmore?
All four are white men who supported Native genocide, and two were slaveholders. Jefferson alone enslaved over 600 human beings in his lifetime, including 4 of his own children. The sculptor who did the carving had KKK ties. The site of Mt. Rushmore was the ancestral land belonging to several tribes of Sioux. After the discovery of gold there, the US broke their own 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie and forced the tribes off their land. Who are the real heroes of this story?
Venus Degentium (Venus Diaspora) collage by M Susan Broussard
collage on paper 2023 36x24 in (91x61 cm)
Venus Degentium (Diaspora Venus)...
... is the name of the collage in the above photo, She represents the African diaspora (separation from ancestral homeland). Her hair is collaged from various US states. Her beauty celebrates African femininity, in contrast to the classical Greek and Roman feminine ideal.
No history is mute. No matter how much they burn it, no matter how much they break it, no matter how much they lie to it, the history of man refuses to keep its mouth shut. The time that was is still beating, alive, within the time that is. Even if the time that is does not want it or does not know it.
No hay historia muda. Por mucho que la quemen, por mucho que la rompan, por mucho que la mientan, la historia humana se niega a callarse la boca. El tiempo que fue sigue latiendo, vivo, dentro del tiempo que es, aunque el tiempo que es no lo quiera o no lo sepa.
- Eduardo Galeano
Uruguayan journalist, writer, champion of social justice us history american history african american history
Video
Stars and Stripes
Installation (canvas, granite, wood, hemp)
5 x 9' us history american history african american history
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
M Susan Broussard, May 30, 2020
Look beneath the history of our country ... What we choose to ignore will never go away. us history american history african american history
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