Kansans should face our unflattering past

"Whenever I hear people today say 'it’s never been this bad' or 'we have never faced such challenges,' I know they haven’t listened to my stories."

By

Opinion

August 10, 2020 - 9:20 AM

John Brown, the abolitionist

I’m in the history business.

No, I cannot claim the title historian. I think that title more accurately belongs to those who hold history degrees and create academic works.

I prefer the title storyteller.

I spent 35 years as a professional storyteller — a newsman.

“News is the first, rough draft of history,” is often attributed to the late Washington Post Publisher Phil Graham. I thought that when I left daily journalism to become executive director of Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area, created by Congress to tell the story of the Kansas-Missouri border, I was leaving that “first, rough draft of history” behind.

I was wrong.

Whenever I hear people today say “it’s never been this bad” or “we have never faced such challenges,” I know they haven’t listened to my stories.

Related
March 14, 2022
November 12, 2021
November 4, 2014
September 23, 2010