Ransacking Democracy

Educational organizations often provide statements when important events occur. I wanted to provide the views of several organizations that are associated with my academic disciplines:

The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education issued a statement on the storming of the U.S. Capitol:

AACTE President and CEO Lynn M. Gangone issued the following statement today regarding the horrific events that took place yesterday, January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol building:

“Our nation experienced a serious threat to our treasured democracy as rioters stormed one of our nation’s sacred buildings, the U.S. Capitol, intending damage and insurrection. We witnessed a challenge to our democracy that none of us could ever have imagined. Generated by our nation’s President, some Members of Congress, and their denial of the results of our free and open electoral process, this unlawful invasion of the Capitol has left us all stunned. Never could we imagine such an event would occur in our nation’s capital, the seat of our democracy.

We are further outraged by the vast difference in how these rioters were treated by police as compared to how peaceful protesters for Black Lives Matter have been treated. The discrepancies are stark and maddening.

As educators, we hold our responsibility to instill the values of democracy in our students as a core mission. We reinforce the will of the people by honoring the outcome of elections. We believe in equal opportunity and fairness for all citizens, and we name violations when we see them.

The denigration of our democracy we experienced was fueled by incendiary rhetoric and unfounded allegations. We will not allow them to stand. Today, we renew our commitment to resisting hate and restoring hope, to our compact with Americans to promote the common good, to ensure equity, and to bring forth the American spirit that is the foundation of our nation.

AACTE joins with like-minded citizens around the country who are determined to preserve our democracy and ensure the continuation of free and fair elections. Together, we will rise above the recklessness of these actions and focus on the peaceful transition of power to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President elect Kamala Harris on January 20. We join our education colleagues in working tirelessly to ensure an inclusive, equitable and just society.”

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The American Historical Association has responded to the events at the United States Capitol.  I would like to present its statement, "Ransacking Democracy": 

Approved by AHA Council, January 8, 2021 

The American Historical Association condemns the actions of those who, on January 6, stormed the United States Capitol, the seat of the nation’s legislature, the heart of its democratic form of governance. This assault on the very principle of representative democracy received recent explicit and indirect support from the White House and from certain senators and representatives themselves. Not since 1814, when the British looted and burned the Capitol, has the United States witnessed such a blatant attack on the “People’s House.”

Everything has a history. What happened at the Capitol is part of a historical process. Over the past few years, cynical politicians have nurtured and manipulated for their own bigoted and self-interested purposes the sensibilities of the rioters. We deplore the inflammatory rhetoric of all the political leaders who have refused to accept the legitimacy of the results of the 2020 election and thereby incited the mob-and this on the day when the nation reported 3,865 COVID-19 deaths, the highest number reported in a single day since the pandemic began.

We note with dismay the iconography of the banners carried by the mob—the flag with the visage of the president emblazoned on it, as if loyalty were due an individual and not the rule of law, and the flag of the Confederacy, signaling violence and sedition. Not by coincidence, those people who attacked the Capitol have been described by the current president and his advisers as “great patriots” and “American patriots.” The rioters were neither.

A day that began with two significant “firsts”—the election of Georgia’s first African American senator and that state’s first Jewish senator—ended with Congress performing its duties according to the Constitution. Yet during the day we witnessed the unprecedented spectacle of a group of Americans desecrating the sacred space of the nation’s Capitol, and terrorizing everyone in it.

As historians, we call upon our fellow citizens and elected representatives to abide by the law and tell the truth. Our democracy demands nothing less of ourselves and of our leaders.

The following organizations have cosigned this statement:

African American Intellectual History Society

Agricultural History Society

American Anthropological Association

American Association for State and Local History

American Catholic Historical Association

American Folklore Society

American Journalism Historians Association

American Society for Environmental History

Association for Documentary Editing

Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies

Association of Ancient Historians

Central European History Society

Chinese Historians in United States

Conference of Historical Journals

Conference on Asian History

Conference on Latin American History

Coordinating Council for Women in History

Forum on Early-Modern Empires and Global Interactions

Hungarian Studies Association

Immigration and Ethnic History Society

Labor and Working-Class History Association

Modern Greek Studies Association

National Council on Public History

Organization of American Historians

Society for Advancing the History of South Asia

Society for Austrian and Habsburg History

Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Society for the History of Children and Youth

Society for U.S. Intellectual History

Society of Civil War Historians

Urban History Association

Western History Association

World History Association