Today's parents remember learning in school the significance of the Declaration of Independence and the courage and sacrifices of the Founding Fathers.  They developed a love of country and pride in the flag.  Now parents see their children being taught that the Declaration of Independence is a lie and that the white men who drafted those words did not believe them to be true.  What they see motivates the parents to protest at school board meetings and vote to remove elected officials who promote these divisive theories.

The nonprofit Pulitzer Center is creating this problem by distributing misleading narratives and erroneous opinions from the 1619 Project into schools.

Here is an example to help people understand this issue.

The full text of the Declaration of Independence (1776) is at ourdocuments.gov.  The second paragraph goes like this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ... That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it[.]

The 1619 Project picked words from the Declaration and used them as "props" around speculations and accusations to fabricate a misleading narrative.  See how the "props" are used in this narrative that the Pulitzer Center is distributing into schools.

The United States is a nation founded on both an ideal and a lie. Our Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4, 1776, proclaims that ''all men are created equal'' and ''endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.''

But the white men who drafted those words did not believe them to be true for the hundreds of thousands of black people in their midst. ''Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'' did not apply to fully one-fifth of the country.

Parents want to go back to teaching what the Founding Fathers called facts.

 The Declaration of Independence is not a lie!  The Declaration states that the king of England's "establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States" is destructive of these ends for all Americans.  Slavery was a terrible evil, and the slaves suffered the worst.  The colonists were revolting to create a new country with "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'' as ideals.

Most Americans learned in school that the Declaration lists 27 facts (it calls them facts) as the reasons they were revolting.  Schools used to teach how brave the Founding Fathers were to sign the Declaration of Independence from the tyrant because 3 of the 27 facts were these:

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.

The Pulitzer Center narrative states: "the white men who drafted those words did not believe them to be true[.]"

Many Americans learned in school that, if the 56 founding fathers who dared to sign the Declaration of Independence were caught, they expected their trials to last only a few minutes before they received their punishment.  They signed: "we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."  The public hangings for treason by the tyrant's agents did not draw spectators.  The hanging took place in a busy location, where the body was left hanging for three or four days until the sun made it unforgettable to the public.

Nathan Hale is an example of a patriot whose body was left hanging for several days.  The tyrant's agents had intended to frighten the colonists.  However, more Americans reacted by joining the fight for independence.

Americans want schools to teach facts instead of the misleading narratives and erroneous opinions being distributed by the Pulitzer Center.

Image via Picryl.