History is written by the winners

In March 2025, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” This directive targeted the Smithsonian Institution, demanding that the Smithsonian Vice President remove “improper ideology” (Sec. 2a) from its museums, exhibits and educational materials. It also instructed the Department of the Interior to restore any monuments or content removed since 2020, claiming that these memorials have been removed or changed “to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology” (Sec. 4ai).

Trump justified the order by claiming that “Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.  This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.” (Sec. 1)

By summer, the White House had escalated its interference. Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch met with Trump following mounting pressure from the administration to sanitize exhibits. The White House even released a “woke list” of Smithsonian exhibits deemed problematically ideological, including those involving race, gender identity, slavery, immigration, and social justice.

In addition, Trump has publicly lambasted the Smithsonian’s portrayal of American history, complaining on social media that “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.” He also took direct action to erase unflattering parts of his presidency from the museum’s record. Under pressure from his administration, the Smithsonian removed references to his two impeachments from a presidential exhibit—effectively rewriting a chapter of history. The Smithsonian has since restored the plaque, but with significant changes. The description of his second impeachment has been changed to remove claims that he repeatedly made “false statements” about losing the 2020 election, along with a quote from the impeachment article saying his speech “encouraged — and foreseeably resulted in — lawless action at the Capitol.”

Critics and historians have compared these moves to authoritarian censorship. Trump’s effort to recast public memory in a narrower, cheerier light by minimizing slavery, race and systemic injustice, cuts at the heart of historical truth. His framing of history as a tool for “unity” pretends that national pride can only thrive if its dark moments are swept under the rug.

This is concerning. When politicians try to dictate what belongs in our textbooks or museums, they are not just debating facts; they are deciding whose voices matter, whose suffering counts and whose victories get remembered. Trump’s push for a “patriotic” version of the American past is part of a broader effort to sanitize our nation’s story. It may sound like a call for “unity” or “progress,” but in reality, it is propaganda: an attempt to reshape the national narrative so that the “winners,” overwhelmingly white, male and privileged, look not just powerful, but benevolent.

This problem is not new. History has always been written by those who hold power. In the United States, that has meant presenting slavery as a sad but secondary footnote rather than the engine of the economy, erasing the genocide of Native Americans behind the language of “westward expansion” and downplaying the violence faced by those who fought for civil rights. For generations, textbooks, monuments, and films presented the Confederacy not as a rebellion to preserve slavery, but as a noble struggle for “states’ rights.” This deliberate rewriting of history wasn’t an accident. The story that emerges is one where America steadily marches toward freedom, led by wise men who occasionally stumbled but ultimately always knew best. That is not history — it is mythmaking.

When politicians argue that we must minimize these uncomfortable truths in the name of “unity,” they are not protecting the country; they are protecting themselves. A country cannot move forward if it refuses to confront the full weight of its past. If we instead explore history honestly, learning that “winning” often comes at the expense of others’ dignity, land and lives, then we are better equipped to build a future that does not repeat those patterns.

That is why the fight over history is never just about the past. It is about who gets to define America’s identity today and who will be allowed to shape its future. Leaders who call for “patriotic” education are not asking us to love our country more; they are asking us to love their version of it: a version that erases the people their power has oppressed.

This year, William Jewell College celebrates its 175th anniversary as an institution of higher learning, but that is not the only milestone achievement that ought to be recognized. 2024 marks the 130th anniversary of The Hilltop Monitor, the college’s official student newspaper. Since 1894, students have been consistently passing the torch and upholding this tradition, making ours among the oldest and longest running student publications in the country. 

The Hilltop Monitor as we know it today originated under a different name: The William Jewell Student. Before 1894, there had been a scattering of attempts to get a regular student publication off the ground. According to the memories from the earliest editions of the William Jewell Tatler, the first student publication was called The Jewell. It began in 1874-75 and lasted only around five years or so, publishing irregularly. The idea of a student paper lay dormant for the next few generations of Jewell students. It was reawakened in the summer of 1881 according to an article in the Kansas Weekly Herald, but it wasn’t until the 1894-95 school year when it was revived definitively as The William Jewell Student. 

Initially, the paper was co-managed by Jewell’s reigning literary societies: Excelsior and Philomathic. These were honors organizations that taught language and communication skills, and they were instrumental to building a campus community in Jewell’s earliest years. The Student’s staff was traditionally composed of four Philomathians and four Excelsiors, a tradition that continued until around 1917-1918 when the literary societies began to fall out of style in favor of the successful debating society and increasing participation in athletics. 

In the beginning, it was a monthly paper on literature, science, and occasionally some general news about the college. For much of its life as The Student, the campus paper reported on all the major and minor happenings relevant to the student body. It published faculty profiles and course updates alongside local advertisements and the personal statuses of classmates. A subscription cost 50¢ per year according to “Cardinal is Her Color,” Jewell’s most recent comprehensive history written for Jewell’s 150th anniversary. The 1912 Tatler reports that, in the 1911-1912 school year, the paper started publishing weekly in addition to the usual monthly literary edition featuring works of creative writing submitted by students. 

After it left the hands of the literary societies, there was a period when The Student fell under the purview of the student government who were then responsible for appointing new editors for both The Student and the Tatler. Upon the introduction of journalism classes to the English curriculum starting in the 20s, maintenance of the paper transferred again to be the charge of journalism students and volunteers under a faculty advisor. 

The Student charged on under the guidance of Dr. Georgia B. Bowman, a staple of the English and Communications departments from 1947 to her retirement in 1980 (although she maintained a presence on the Hill as a welcome professor emeritus for several years following). The role of faculty advisor was then taken on by Professor Lois Anne Harris who began teaching the courses on journalism when she joined the Jewell community in 1979. 

Professor Harris oversaw the 1985-1986 editorial staff’s decision to change the name of the newspaper. In a recent interview by The Monitor, the chief editor at the time, Paul Paulter ‘87, recalled that it was a group decision spurred by repeated confusion when talking about the paper: “You know, you answer the phone, you [say], ‘The Student,’ and they’re like, ‘Oh, I’m looking for the student newspaper.’ ‘Yeah, that’s it.’ ‘Well, what’s the name of it?’ ‘It’s The Student.’” After collaborating with the editors, Professor Harris, the journalism classes, and members of faculty, a new name was decided on. It was even run by the Student Senate for approval among student leaders. During the brainstorming sessions, Paulter remembers “that there were names like, you know, The Monitor or The Post or the whatever by themselves, but there was a thought that we wanted to have it [be] something uniquely Jewell-like. So, we worked in the Hilltop part. I remember that being a portion that we wanted to work in; something that seemed that was in the Jewell parlance.” And just like that, The William Jewell Student was rechristened as The Hilltop Monitor we know today. 

As is to be expected with any shift in tradition, there was indeed some pushback for a few months after the new name was made official. For 92 years, the paper had been known under the same title, and it ruffled some feathers among current and former cardinals to see it renamed. The 1987 Tatler described The Hilltop Monitor’s first year as beginning “in a heat of controversy,” which Paulter says the staff at the time had not anticipated. “There was a period of time,” Paulter said, “where there were a lot of letters to the editor” from students and “old alumni who had written in and expressed some displeasure.” Laughing, Paulter admitted his greatest regret is that he was a bit flippant in his responses to the letters. Like so many chief editors before (and after) him, the paper was a significant part of his Jewell career. “To be honest,” he said, “I look back with a lot of pride for the newspapers we put out for those couple of years. We did a good job and put forth some good papers.”

Having been continually in print for 130 years now, The Monitor owes its longevity to the fact that it is exceptionally flexible, always adapting to the changing needs of its students. In the first issue of the 1912-1913 school year, a letter from the editors reads, “The Student is an enterprise in which the whole school is bound up. It will depend upon the whole school for success, and its success will largely depend on how the school responds to this dependence. […]

“The Student, if it is the paper it ought to be, is an assembling of a number of ideas. The more and varied these ideas, the better the paper. The staff, of course, intends to put the best brains it has into the publication, but the staff doesn’t think for a minute that alone, it can produce a periodical that will do justice to William Jewell College.

“Any newspaper, particularly a college newspaper, must progress, must change in order to be vital, to be interesting and of value, and to perform properly its function.”

While so much else has changed—the name, the staff, the frequency of publication, the subject matter, the method of delivery—this message continues to be true. Let us hope that for as long as Jewell stands atop her hill, The Hilltop Monitor will persist alongside her, informing the Jewell community and granting students the opportunity for their voices to be heard.

As global outrage grew, many expressed unwavering support for Israel. However, it’s crucial to recognize that history is not confined to our attention span. Before making judgments, we must understand that the complexity of this situation requires a consideration of the historical context spanning at least the last two centuries.

History of Israel and Palestine 

Beginning in the 1840s, the British viewed Palestine as a strategic Middle Eastern foothold, formalizing their interest during World War I through the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which called for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Tensions escalated between Arabs and Jews in the following decades as a growing number of Jewish people sought refuge in Palestine following the Holocaust. Driven by a need for safety after centuries of persecution, Jewish individuals desired their own state. Simultaneously, Palestinians witnessed their own homes being forcibly taken and their land colonized, deepening the conflict. The conflict grew so large that the UK turned the issue over to the United Nations in 1947.  After looking at alternatives, the UN proposed the separation of Palestine into two independent states, one Palestinian-Arab and the other Jewish. The Jewish state proclaimed its independence as Israel. In the 1948 war involving neighboring Arab States, Israel’s new army expanded its territory, leading to the expulsion or flight of about 700,000 Palestinians, constituting approximately 85% of the indigenous Arab population in the captured area, who were never permitted to return.

Over the past 50 years, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has persisted with Israel constructing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where more than 700,000 Jews now reside, despite international law deeming these settlements illegal. Israel’s policies, particularly concerning the Gaza Strip, have faced global criticism. Since 2007 Gaza has been under a stringent blockade, tightly controlled by Israel, encompassed by concrete walls and barbed wire fences.

Palestinians in Gaza endure severe restrictions, with limited access to trade, water and electricity due to the blockade. They are prohibited from entering or leaving the territory except in extremely rare cases such as urgent, life-threatening medical conditions. This situation has been described by human rights groups as akin to living in the world’s largest open-air prison.

Israel’s Response to the Attack  

In response to the recent attack on Oct. 7, Israel has taken significant military actions, which have sparked widespread international concern. Reports have emerged detailing alleged war crimes committed by Israel, including the bombing of hospitals and deliberate cutoffs of essential services such as electricity and water supply in Gaza. 

According to the Secretary General of Amnesty International, Agnès Callamard: “In their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives. They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel and electricity. Testimonies from eyewitnesses and survivors highlighted, again and again, how Israeli attacks decimated Palestinian families, causing such destruction that surviving relatives have little but rubble to remember their loved ones by.” 

American Involvement 

The United States, among other countries, has been a long-standing supporter of Israel, providing substantial financial aid and military assistance. This support has generated debates and criticism, raising questions about the indirect endorsement of Israel’s military actions in the region.

The US is currently continuing its extensive financial support to Israel, having provided the country with $158 billion since World War II, surpassing aid given to any other nation. Although US officials have thus far refrained from sending troops, they actively support the Israeli military and security forces. In response to the recent Hamas attack, the US is sending guided-missile carriers, F-35 fighters and other equipment

On Oct. 13, The American public seemed to agree with the support of Israel. 44% of the 1,313 adult  Americans polled said that Israel’s response to Hamas attacks has been about right, while about 25% said it has actually been too little.  An article published on Oct. 23 showed how these numbers have changed over the last week. It found 7 in 10 Americans — support providing aid to Israel. When asked for opinions on Israel’s response to Hamas’ attack, 35% of registered voters said Israel’s retaliation has been “about right” while one-quarter said Israel’s response has been “not harsh enough.”  Those numbers may seem like a relatively small change, but it does show that opinions are changing slowly but surely. This may be due to the increasing number of young people who are speaking out against Israel’s action.

Should America be Supporting Israel

The significant financial aid and military assistance provided by the United States endorse Israel’s actions. This only leads to more human rights violations and exacerbates tensions in the region. There needs to be a more balanced approach that promotes diplomacy, dialogue and a just resolution to the conflict. Americans should advocate for a reconsideration of the substantial aid provided and urge the US to leverage its influence to encourage both parties to engage in peaceful negotiations and respect for international law instead of unequivocally supporting the Israeli government.

By promoting initiatives that encourage mutual understanding and respect, the focus can shift from military aid to diplomatic solutions. The goal should be to create a more peaceful coexistence. It’s vital for policymakers and leaders to carefully consider the implications of their support and work towards a future where both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security.

Conclusion

The ethics of the Israel-Hamas conflict is very nuanced and this article can only act as a brief overview. Nevertheless, it is important to consider not only the tragedies that Israel and its citizens have gone through but also the continuous and systemic tragedies that the Palestinian people have faced. To be as informed and humane as possible we must pay close attention to both sides of the issue. Unequivocally supporting a single side is how we allow injustice to happen.

While discussing these issues, it’s essential to emphasize that criticism of the Israeli government’s policies should not translate into hatred or prejudice against Jewish people. Not all Jewish individuals support the Israeli government’s actions, just as not all Palestinians support the actions of Hamas. Navigating this topic demands careful consideration that aims to promote understanding and empathy while condemning violence and injustice.

18th and Vine, dubbed as Kansas City’s “Jazz District” in the 1920s, is the home of the American Jazz Museum and many live music clubs and restaurants like The Blue Room, The KC Blues Juke House and the Gem Theater. This area is also known for its predominantly African American community and history. It holds the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the Black Archives of Mid-America as main attractions in the district. 

As I made my way to the locations mentioned, my attention was drawn to four uniquely built structures. Below are my findings on these places and their histories.

Charlie Parker Memorial

Charlie “Bird” Parker started his career in jazz as a teenager in 1940s Kansas City. He played in many of the clubs at 18th and Vine. Nearly a decade later, Parker is considered among the most influential jazz musicians of all time. Standing 18 feet tall, this statue was built to memorialize Parker as he often held himself: “head tilted downward, eyes shut, and lips pursed as if he were playing the saxophone,” as The Clio wrote.

Kansas City’s The Call

Kansas City’s The Call, founded in 1919 by Chester A. Franklin, is a weekly newspaper that actively supports the local and national African American communities. Still publishing a new issue every Friday, this newspaper was one of the first Black newspapers in the United States, as stated by The Clio, and it eventually spread to other states in the Midwest. (Photos 2 and 3 from the African American Heritage Trail of Kansas City website.) 

Gem Theater

Originally called the Star Theater in 1912, The Clio writes, the Gem Theater was a place specifically for African Americans to see films during a time of deep segregation. After falling into disrepair in the 1960s, the theater was renovated to become a venue for live performances. (Photos 2 and 3 from the African American Heritage Trail of Kansas City website.) 

The Vine Street Workhouse

Built in 1897 by the prisoners of the workhouse, this castle-like structure was used as a city jail. According to the African American Heritage Trail of Kansas City, the men housed at the “workhouse castle” worked for the city, while the women worked as seamstresses. After the jail was closed in 1924, the workhouse was repurposed several times until it was finally abandoned in 1972. The “castle” still remains untouched– besides the graffiti and overgrown vegetation.