Hello all -
The American Library Association has joined the American Historical Association's condemnation of the 1776 Report. You can read the official press release here, but I want to call attention to a few paragraphs in the statement:
"The American Library Association (ALA) (including the Reference & Users Services Association and the Association of College and Research Libraries History Librarians' Interest Group) has endorsed the American Historical Association's (AHA) statement condemning the 1776 Commission's report. As a professional association of librarians, ALA recognizes that it has a social responsibility to support efforts to "inform and educate the people of the United States on [the critical problems of society] and to encourage them to examine the many views on and the facts regarding each problem" (ALA Policy Manual A.1.1 Mission Priority Areas, Goals).
The 1776 Report, in contrast, represents, as the AHA writes, "an apparent attempt to reject recent efforts to understand the multiple ways the institution of slavery shaped our nation's history. The authors call for a form of government indoctrination of American students, and in the process elevate ignorance about the past to a civic virtue." The report attacks our education system as a whole and specifically American universities, calling them "hotbeds of anti-Americanism, libel, and censorship." Notably, no professional historians were included on or consulted by the 1776 Commission.
The ALA stands with the AHA and the many other professional organizations that have cosigned this statement in support of teaching and promoting accurate and fact-based history. The study of history is often uncomfortable and difficult to reckon with; we should still pursue these hard conversations and truths."
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Thank you in particular to members, Scott Libson and Erica Bruchko, for emailing myself and RUSA History with this suggestion.
Best Wishes,
Kaitlyn Tanis
Convenor of ACRL History Librarians' Interest Group
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Kaitlyn Tanis
History and Social Sciences Librarian
University of Delaware
She/Her/Hers
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