When History Stops Being a Subject and Starts Becoming a Responsibility

searching through books in New Orleans

In my first year of college back in 2018, I was in a secondary education program, planning and hoping to teach high school social studies. My schedule was full of geography, government, history, and economics courses—but I felt so disconnected from a majority of them. It wasn't until the spring semester of 2021 that I finally decided I wanted to devote myself solely to history.

Up until that point, I'd studied a mix of European and American history—mostly your average, "standard" information. That spring, however, I enrolled in a course called The Black Woman. I always say that this was the first real moment I knew everything was going to change for me—and it did.

The way we learn history is terrifying. We miss so many portions of it and end up consistently circling the same timelines— the American Revolution then the Civil War...or maybe the Civil War and then the American Revolution! Even having excellent social studies teachers in middle and high school, we still managed to miss so much.

Suddenly, I was studying pre-colonial Africa, the history of Christianity, diving deeper into the history of the Renaissance and Reformation, learning staggering truths about the Vietnam War (and let me just say, I don't think I've ever received that much information about a war in my life), and exploring regions of the world I would have missed entirely if I hadn't changed my major.

There was one unforgettable moment for me—I can't tell you what class it was or what was being said—but I remember sitting there, my jaw on the floor. I had never heard the information was I given in that moment, not in any course I'd attended before college. And then the disbelief gave way to my being enraged. I was learning things the average person should absolutely know. I couldn't stop thinking about how crazy it was to know people were walking around WITHOUT the knowledge I was receiving.

Fast forward to grad school, and my studies have become even more immersive. I've researched the decolonization of European "empires" around the world, discovered unexpected environmental impacts on history, and traced how the Atlantic Worlds connects to almost every era and portion of history. I fear my jaw still hasn't recovered— it's still very much on the floor.

One night, while doing some research for a paper, I stopped everything I was doing and just started to cry. Not because of the workload or the six hundred pages of reading I was supposed to do that week, but because what I was reading was beyond heart breaking—to know this information and feel like I had no one to share it with. It felt like I was carrying a burden that most would not understand and I hated that they would never know of it. I cried for lives lost—most times for no reason, for the way so many had been silenced and for those who fought to break through that silence—I imagined how different people might think if only they knew.

Then there were days I didn't want to know anything at all. Those days came after hearing people advocating for erasing parts of history from curricula—history that already needed more depth, not deletion. Other days or times, it was simply knowing how some people's stories ended. I specialize in the history of Victorian England lesbian relationships and Victorian England true crime cases. Sometimes I hold their words in my hands, printed from an archive, wishing I could speak to the person who wrote them—to warn them, comfort them, or simply let them know they were never wrong for existing. So many people have changed my life and they will simply never know. Carrying their stories feels like such an honor and such a responsibility. And with all of this knowledge, all I can hope is that I do right by them—that I keep fighting for their voices to be heard.

History has changed so drastically for me. I fell in love with it as a kid, reading the American Girls series. Some days, I wish I could go back to loving it the way I did then—when it was just curiosity, not a calling. Now, I have so much work to do.

What would you do when you learn something you can and will never unknow?