October 10, 2024: Contested Holidays: Thanksgiving/Day of Mourning

[Ahead of Columbus/IndigenousPeoples’ Day, I wanted to dedicate a series to exploring such contestedAmerican holidays and what they can help us think about. Leading up to aspecial post on that most conflicted of all our federal holidays!]

On twoways we can be thankful while mourning.

Gotta gofour for four with asking you to read other pieces at the start of this week’sposts: two years ago I wrote for my SaturdayEvening Post Considering History column on Wamsutta James and his lifelongefforts to reframe Thanksgiving as a National Day of Mourning. Once again I’llask you to check out that prior piece if you would, and then come on back forsome further thoughts on how we can put these two contrasting commemorations inconversation.

Welcomeback! I don’t want to minimize any of the specifics of the National Day ofMourning, which I think was and remains a vital addition to our collectivecalendar. But I do believe there’s value in an occasion which presents us withan opportunity to be thankful, and would say that the combination of these twocommemorations can add importantly to that perspective as well. For one thing,I’m hugely thankful for the activists who throughout our history have pushed usto better remember our hardest and most painful histories, a list that mostdefinitely includes countless indigenous activists, from WilliamApess and Zitkala-Ša to the AmericanIndian Movement and Wamsutta James and up to so many inour present moment. When I make the case, as I do frequently, that criticalpatriots embody the best of American ideals through their recognition of how we’vefar too often fallen short of them (and their concurrent desire to push uscloser to them), it’s precisely folks like these about whom I’m thinking, andremembering James on Thanksgiving would thus commemorate our best as well asrespect the legacy of his National Day of Mourning ideas.

That’s acollective point, and the more important of the two I’ll share here to be sure.But I have to add a more personal and I hope understandable complement: howthankful I am for the lifelong opportunity both to learn about such figures andcommunities and to do my part to help make them all more consistently and fullypart of our collective memories and conversations. I don’t want to pretend fora second that any aspect of my work equals or even parallels that of activistslike James—but the chance to help connect more of my fellow Americans to himand his voice and ideas and efforts and effects is not only not one I will evertake lightly, but also is genuinely one of the aspects of my work (in theclassroom, in writing and scholarship of all kinds, and in any and every otherway I can think of) for which I’m most thankful. I try to remember that as wellas Wamsutta James and the National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving, and I hopeyou all will as well.

LastHolidayStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?