In the Gap Between January 6 and MLK Day, Once Forbidden History Offers Hope

By Ben JealousEven Ron DeSantis had to admit, when pressed at a CNN townhall, January 6 was a bad day for America. Invariably, following this past week’s anniversary of the insurrection, we’re forced to ask ourselves: Will we ever be able to pull this country back together again? It’s a reasonable question. The fissures run deep. For the answer to that big, terrible question, I turn to the history books. And to the history of our country that was long kept out of those books. In the wake of the Civil War, America was still a tinder keg. In 1867, two years after the Civil War had ended and nine years before another almost erupted, Frederick Douglass laid out the argument for why, as Americans, we should remain optimistic about our future and our ability to come together. In “Our Composite Nation,” Douglass explained, a nation’s character is defined by that nation at its best, not its worst. And America’s character (at our best), our geography, and our already diverse population “all conspire to one grand end” … to make us the most “perfect national illustration of the unity and dignity of the human family, that the world has ever...