Williamsburg, Virginia – © Brian Rose

I grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia, and as a result, was steeped in American history. I was a member of the Colonial Williamsburg Fifes and Drums, and with the corps, played for two U.S. presidents and many other heads of state and dignitaries.

Colonial Williamsburg, from the beginning, told an idealized, and sanitized, version of American history. The triumph of liberty over tyranny. The restored houses and reconstructions were of clean white clapboard. The decorative gardens and tidy rear kitchens suggested an orderly and civilized society. The presence of slave labor was not dwelled upon, though acknowledged as a temporary evil eventually to be done away with. Jefferson, Washington, and Patrick Henry were portrayed as heroes who not only stood up to a despot, but inspired the creation of a new nation, democratic and egalitarian. The founding fathers were towering figures.

They were – but we see them now through less rosy glasses, and in recent decades, the foundation has made much progress in telling the full narrative. The enslaved are now included as integral to the 18th century colonial capital, and recently, CW commemorated the restoration of the Bray School, a building from 1760 that was dedicated to the education of black children. The Colonial Williamsburg website states without mincing words that: “the school’s faith-based curriculum justified slavery and encouraged those who were enslaved to accept their destinies.”

Whatever its shortcomings, the central mission of Colonial Williamsburg remains “”That the future may learn from the past.”

We have just elected a president who is a repudiation of the ideals of Jefferson and Washington. A vulgar disreputable criminal. A rapist. A man with no character and no moral compass, and certainly, no sense of history to learn from. Will Colonial Williamsburg survive this debauchery of American history. Will the Republic survive?