No more deadlines

There's always a hero in history. Westerhold The first American history classes in school I remember are from 7th grade, at the old Adams Junior High School. From Christopher Columbus to FDR, we learned about the great American experiment in freedom and democracy. There was always a hero, from Columbus bravely sailing to the new world with three ships to Roosevelt and Winston Churchill teaming up to save the world from a fascist dictator. Perhaps the greatest American hero depicted in our history books was President Abraham Lincoln, who led the nation against a domestic rebellion, saved the union and freed the slaves, purging its original sin, the stain of human bondage. That's pretty damn heroic. Our history books celebrate Lincoln, and Washington, Roosevelt and Churchill, even, for more than 500 years, Christopher Columbus. As children, we were taught to root for heroes, the ones we're shown. Cities, streets and schools are named after them. The darker side of history — the part that is more difficult to tell and more difficult to teach — was left out of those history books. While the Civil War is covered, its focus was more on the brilliance and greatness of the white generals and Lincoln and the enormous losses on both sides. The elephant in the room that wasn't in the history books was why reconstruction failed, the rise of the KKK and Jim Crow and 400 years of lynchings whites participated in, having town square picnics to celebrate the terrorism they were inflicting on an entire race. The first time I remember hearing about a different part of history — the Tulsa race massacre — was just a few years ago, about the time when President Joe Biden made Juneteenth a national holiday. At the end of May, beginning of June 1921, White residents in Tulsa burned down the business district known as "Black Wall Street" and killed an undetermined number of black business owners and their families in the worst race riot in the nation's history. The first time I remember learning about how Frederick Douglas, the famed abolitionist-activist who visited Sandusky, viewed the nation's annual celebration of Independence Day — he could barely tolerate it — was also more recently. Phillip Graham, the iconic publisher of the Washington Post and founder of Newsweek Magazine, is credited with saying that "newspapers are the first draft of history." It's true. And like our history books, newspapers get written from the lens of our own perspective, the view in which we find our heroes and our villains. I am grateful for the lens Leonard Pitts Jr. has brought to readers for more than 40 years. Unapologetic, straightforward, consistent and brave, Pitts has been on Page A4 of the Register weekly for more than two decades. He's been a journalist (and a historian) for more than 40 years. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for commentary. There are few, if any national columnists, who equal him. As the person who compiles this page I also appreciate that reliability, knowing that if Pitts was scheduled to publish tomorrow the editorial page would be a good one that day. There isn't a columnist who is more dependably able to fire up the audience, to get them thinking. Pitts wrote about Tulsa, and lynchings, Juneteenth, the original sin, Jim Crow and the KKK. He's been a fearless warrior providing the nation a view on the present and its past, its good, its bad, its disturbing and the ugly. Pitts announced last week he is retiring. A column published Thursday was his last. He cannot be replaced.