The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History

by Sharon McMahon

“I fear that instead of the language of a public speaker, you will hear only the lamentations of a bewailing friend.”[2]

Americans often imagine that the Constitution was written by a bunch of white dudes wearing pants buttoned below the knee, wigs perfectly curled near their faces, because that’s exactly what is depicted in the paintings we see in our textbooks. And to an extent, it’s true: ideas were argued and hammered out by a conglomeration of men, old and young, wearing period-appropriate clothing.

The people outside the dominant caste, those whose impact has been missed by people who either don’t know where to look or who have intentionally decided not to, the auroras of history: it is their stories I have come to find the most interesting.

The best Americans are not the critics, they are the doers. They are the people who went for broke when everyone else yelled to turn back. They are those who know that one becomes great because of who they lift up, not who they put down. I have learned that no one reaches their final moments of mortal existence and whispers to their loved ones, “I wish I had gotten in some more sick burns in the comments section on Facebook.”

German immigrants were also big on soup, often eating it for at least one meal a day. Soup was something you put on the stove in the morning, and when anyone was hungry, you just helped yourself, sopping up the broth with a hunk of rye bread.

If anyone tries to tell you the Civil War was a war for “state’s rights,” calmly look them in the eye, and ask, politely and inquisitively, what exactly the states wanted the “right” to do? You can follow up with, “Make their own rules about what?” The answer is, of course, that they wanted to make their own rules about whether they had the right to enslave people. All the “way of life” and “self-determination” and “economic conditions” roads lead right back to slavery. You can also spare me the arguments of “other places in the world enslaved people,” “the United States was one of the first countries to end slavery,” and “Africans sold other Africans into enslavement.”

And finally, it’s absolutely true that Africans helped enslave other Africans. But why? Because of the economic incentive created by Europeans to kidnap and sell people. Without an economic incentive, what would be the point of ripping human beings away from their families, imprisoning them in the most squalid and horrifying conditions, and selling them to slave traders to be shipped across the Middle Passage, where hundreds of thousands of them, possibly even millions, would perish before ever reaching the New World?

James Buchanan was the only bachelor president…or was he? Multiple historians believe Buchanan and William Rufus King, Pierce’s dead vice president, were lovers. King and Buchanan lived together for thirteen years. They were frequently teased for their effeminate mannerisms. Andrew Jackson referred to them as “Miss Fancy and Aunt Nancy,” which were nicknames that probably suggested exactly what you think they suggested.[11]

So no, America is not “the worst it’s ever been” today, despite what some news anchors might be trying to convince you of, because if they can make you afraid, they can gain your attention and your money.

Dr. George Junne, a professor at the University of Northern Colorado, said of her, “People like Clara Brown are rare. She saw her role in the world not as ‘I’ or ‘me’ against ‘them,’ but as ‘us’ and ‘we.’ It was the way that she lived her life that garnered her the amount of respect that she received.”[18]

State spending on Black education across the southern United States, especially in rural areas, was sometimes less than one-third of what was spent on white children, if they spent money at all.[10] The school year was far shorter for Black children, averaging only four months a year. Enrollment and literacy rates were low. Black parents were eager for their children to become educated, but rightfully distrustful of the government’s intentions in the Jim Crow South. Transportation was more than an inconvenience—it was often an arduous task, with children sometimes being forced to walk six to ten miles to and from school. Many children couldn’t be spared from helping the family subsist.