In so many ways, the children are far ahead of their parents and their parents’ generation.

One way that this is evident is in the young people, 12-25 years old, who have taken up the struggle of oppressed people everywhere, without having been taught about the source or cause of the oppression. They did not learn about the things they are most passionate about in their K-12 education. They might have heard something about slavery. They may have heard about colonialism. They might have heard something about imperialism. They may have heard, but they were not taught, about the profound effects of these evils in their own country and the legacy of oppression that continues today.

If they were taught anything about these things, it was almost in passing. Most were never taught any of this at all. As in most history or civics courses in middle school or high school, students might have heard the words chattel slavery, but it likely did not mean much to those constantly rushed to get to other subjects. Even at the university level, such courses were rarely taught in depth.

The organizations that have been created by young people, such as Black Lives Matter, have arisen almost out of necessity and the anguish of the times. There are many such organizations, some formal and others just a gathering of like-minded souls who, seeing the complex array of problems, simply act together with a common purpose. A giant leap was made in the 1960s, when demands were being made to teach black history in college, which eventually trickled down to some secondary schools. Those studies started slowly formally in most places, until now black studies are common and there are multiple high degrees to be earned in those disciplines, but the reality of chattel slavery, its aftermath and how it has affected just about every facet of national life needs to be taught completely.

The teaching of critical race theory (CRT), which means teaching the profound effects of the horrors of slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws that were based on white supremacy, redlining by banks and other institutions, legal segregation in every part of life, especially education, is what scares conservatives and right-wingers and those who desperately want to maintain the myth of America as “the city on the hill,” whence come all good things for all peoples. And, that no ill can come from whatever those in power wish to do, including waging never-ending war. The destructive force of the great American myth cannot be realized without delving into the methods used in the creation of the nation and the perpetuation of the U.S. as a nation for white folks.

Right from the beginning, it didn’t work. The nation was for the multitudes. At least, that was what was implied in the founding documents. At this time, the U.S. is becoming more and more varied in color and that’s what has white supremacists and white nationalists extremely worried. It’s why they have picked critical race theory to focus on for the time being, even though some aspects of it have been taught in schools for decades.

Now, however, there is a stirring, if not an awakening, among all of the people, regardless of the age or generation. Teachers and their representatives in unions, professional associations, and among the general public, including large swaths of parents, want the freedom to teach the country’s history as it really happened, not what the mythologists would like them to teach our young. Alarm bells are sounded from the political right, claiming that critical race theory will propagandize the children, rather than teach them. What they are proposing, however, is the real propaganda that is designed to carry on the myth of Ronald Reagan’s “city on the hill.”

The founders had a good idea and it’s a tragedy that it has taken centuries for the people to even tend to become inclusive. The U.S. may be among the most free nations, but it has not been for all and it is still not for all. Young people are in the forefront of making it a free country for all people: black and brown people, Native Americans, people of Asian and Pacific Island descent, and people of no discernible descent. Even though we’re looking at the long haul, it will be free for all people.

The panic that has set in among conservative-to-right-wingers is nothing short of amazing, with some seeing “Marxists” in charge and the former president stating that CRT is trying “to make students ashamed of their own history.” The onslaught against teaching the real history of the U.S. is alarming in that opponents want to control what teachers can say or not say in their classrooms. This is the kind of censorship that is found in the authoritarian and fascist countries. It has reached the point at which some critics of CRT have slandered historian Howard Zinn as a “communist foot soldier.”

The Washington Examiner, a right-wing newspaper pointed out: “Though it’s been around for 40 years, the controversy around critical race theory heated up in September when then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning federal contractors from conducting diversity training that drew on ‘race-based ideologies’ such as critical race theory. Trump accused schools that teach students about slavery of spreading ‘hateful lies’ and insulting the country’s founding fathers.”

Trump criticized not only teachers of CRT, but attacked the late Howard Zinn, who wrote “A People’s History of the United States,” described by some as providing other perspectives on American history. Wikipedia describes it as depicting “the struggles of Native Americans against European and U.S. conquest and expansion, slaves against slavery, unionists and other workers against capitalists, women against patriarchy, and African-Americans for civil rights. It was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1981.” It is a history of people who have generally been left out of the story of the nation. For that he has been criticized by some other historians, but his leadership has been accepted by multitudes who believe that the unvarnished truth about the nation’s founding and its development into the most powerful and richest nation in the world must be told. It is a history about the people who have been left behind, economically, socially, culturally, and emotionally and their struggle to achieve equality in a nation that has continually thwarted their efforts toward freedom.

Zinn joined the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, serving as a bombardier on targets in Europe, in which civilians were killed. He later visited the people of those targeted cities and what he learned there helped form his anti-war sensibilities. It is ironic that a president, known derisively as “Cadet Bone Spurs,” evaded the draft during the Vietnam War, would publicly question the loyalty of someone who is a true American patriot. Zinn became heavily involved in the civil rights movement, having taught for several years at Spelman College in Atlanta, Ga., and then at Boston University, where he continued his involvement in the struggle for civil rights.

Opponents of the teaching of Critical Race Theory are fearful that students and other young people will sour on the good potential of their country. These people have little faith in the young, who apparently are more astute than the rabid opponents of CRT. The young are smarter than that, but they need to know their own history before they can continue to struggle for equality and freedom for all. Also, they are standing on the shoulders of millions of mighty heroes and heroines of the centuries-old struggle for rights and freedom in the U.S.

Opponents of the teaching of CRT have to be asked: “What are you afraid of? Don’t young people need to know the truth? Without the truth, how will they know what needs to be done?”

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a former newspaper reporter and labor organizer, who lives in the Mohawk Valley of New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Contact Mr. Funiciello and BC.