Jackson also wrote the proverbial book on ethnic cleansing. Remember the Trail of Tears? That was Jackson’s brainchild when, as president, he forcibly removed the Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, Chickasaw, and Cherokee native peoples from the U.S. southern states, forcing them on a 1,000-mile trek to what is now Oklahoma without sufficient food, clothing, shelter, or blankets, thereby wiping out their cultures forever.
In that same alt-truth address referred to above, the current president of the U.S. stated that “everyone in Tennessee loves Andrew Jackson.” Well, I take umbrage. Nashville is one of my hometowns, so I know that I am not the only person from TN to find thoroughly and utterly disturbing Trump's fondness for a man so racist he would leverage the power of Congress to commit crimes against humanity.
As I said, you can learn a lot about someone by knowing whom they admire. Which begs the question: Is it possible Trump shares his history hero’s total lack of regard for anyone that doesn’t look like himself? Or is he simply ignorant of the true historical facts?
Whatever the answer, his choice of #HistoryHero is an obvious sign of what's increasingly clear:
Cultural literacy is at stake today.
When I first started the Time Traveler Tours project, it was all about “making history fun.” As the new century evolved into its second decade, I noticed young people all around me – the very generation most hurt by the loss of humanities education in schools in favor of STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) – were turned off to history.
I also noted how the travel and tourism sectors were neglecting this same population. So, I set out to capture their attention with immersive, engaging, quality content and to build an enterprise based on my passion to #TurnHistoryOn in collaboration with museums and heritage institutions.
But now I see the project differently. With cultural illiteracy on the ascendance, so much so that it's infiltrated the White House, and with complacency toward the facts holding sway over critical thinking and healthy skeptical discourse, the goal must shift:
