“Questioning Our Storied Past,” 26 Oct.

On Tuesday, 26 October, there will be an online panel discussion on the theme “Questioning Our Storied Past: A Discussion on America’s Founding Narratives.”

This event is organized by Unfinished: America at 250, a “partnership of historical and cultural institutions, National Park Service sites, historians, and changemakers,” mostly based in New England.

This group “harnesses the stories of the past and activates historic spaces to provoke community conversations about the ongoing American Revolution.”

The description for this particular discussion is:

As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, Americans continue to grapple with ongoing social injustice and political conflict rooted in our nation’s founding stories. This program will explore how these stories have been made, shared, and passed on and what to make of the gaps and intentional erasures.

Together, the panelists will question how national narratives are built, why they exist, who they serve, and how to transform them. This program will also discuss the importance of creating spaces that dignify diverse stories and difficult truths to reexamine how we see ourselves and our shared past.

Those panelists are:

• Philip J. Deloria, professor at Harvard University, author of Playing Indian, moderator
• Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, professor emerita at California State University, Hayward, author An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States and, most recently, Not “a Nation of Immigrants”: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion
• Elon Cook Lee, director of interpretation and education at the National Trust for Historic Preservation
• Nat Sheidley, president of Revolutionary Spaces, which cares for the Old State House and Old South Meeting-House

The program is scheduled to end with a performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” arranged by Berklee College of Music student Amanda Bradshaw.

This discussion will start at 6:30 P.M. Register through this page.