Using the Past to Look Ahead
A look at the Civic Season by the numbers — and how history is shaping our path forward.
We’re midway through the first-ever Civic Season, a new summer tradition for Americans everywhere to school up on our past and skill up for our future. As you explore the 450+ events, resources, and activities that the Civic Season site has to offer, from museum exhibitions to walking tours to volunteering, you might be wondering about the bigger picture. What got included? How much history are we covering here? Whose voices are represented? What might we see in future years?
We crunched the numbers and here’s what we found.
Of the 450 different activities submitted for inclusion on the site, not including the many more resources and programs shared with #CivicSeason online, there are 33 states and nearly 200 hosting organizations represented.
With so many points of origin, these activities reflect a wide variety of subject matter and sources. More than a quarter of the Civic Season offerings focus on early periods of United States history, like the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. As we celebrate Juneteenth this month, more than 123 programs and resources showcase Black history, like the Road to Freedom app from the American Battlefield Trust. After last year’s 100-year anniversary of the 19th Amendment, 42 programs, like Women of the Senate, speak to the experience of women. And in the wake of a tumultuous election year, you’ll find 221 activities about rights and voting, like this quiz on D.C.’s voting rights from the DC History Center.
But one of the most surprising numbers, perhaps, from a group of history and civics organizations? Nearly half of the events of the Civic Season are about our shared future, not just the past.
These forward-looking events cover a wide range of topics, from climate change to bridging political divisions to driving while Black in America today. You can learn how to decolonize your diet with a cooking demonstration on indigenous cuisine, meet candidates running for NYC Mayor, and hear how facts are changing in our political climate. And if the Revolutionary War era is your thing, there’s ways to bring its lessons to the present day, from navigating the 1619 vs. 1776 debate to a comedy show hosted from the Freedom Trail in Boston.
While museums continue to feature exhibitions about the past, they are also designing programs to address current issues, meeting a need for people today. That kind of information might give a first-time voter or an emerging activist the context she needs to enact future change.
In the classroom, it’s rare that history textbooks deeply dive into the United States in the 21st century, or look ahead to what’s next. But the recent groundswell of youth activism has demonstrated Gen-Z’s investment in shaping the future. And they at least need to know the history they’ve been around for — making the last two decades pivotal to understand. The Civic Season can provide the next generation with access to the knowledge they need to be informed and active citizens.
Historians often appear on the news and online to explain current events, but these discussions do not necessarily point us towards the future. Using history as a forward-looking tool might give us the answers we seek. Putting the past, present, and future in conversation with one another might help us see important nuances as we grapple with the state of our democracy. After all, knowing how we got here is crucial to figure out where we want to go.
Whether you have five minutes or two hours, tons of history and civics knowledge or none, the Civic Season has something for you. Get started exploring.
To power a better tomorrow, it’s never been more important to harness lessons from the past. History has been unevenly written and unevenly shared, but even if we never arrive at a singular “truth” or telling of our story, it is our aim to do better, to make the tent bigger, to understand a more multifaceted perspective. Made By Us is a beacon, a collective effort and guiding force that provides historical context and perspective to inspire action. We use our Medium presence as a forum for exposing more of our process, our perspectives, and the people doing the day-to-day work behind our projects.
