Rethinking National Holidays in the US

National Holidays in the United States are often co-opted or sanitized to achieve a narrative goal, manufacturing consent for state power and obscuring uncomfortable truths. These sanctioned days of unity and remembrance frequently celebrate a fictionalized past, distancing us from the material realities of history and the ongoing struggles of marginalized communities. From Columbus Day to Independence Day and Thanksgiving, most US federal holidays tell stories that comfort the powerful while erasing the genesis of this nation and the lived experiences of those it has harmed.

Attempts to challenge these narratives face direct resistance. For instance, in mid-January of 2026, the United States National Park Service removed an exhibit in Philadelphia that depicted President George Washington’s enslavement of people during his presidency. President Donald Trump justified the removal as an act to ensure museums talk about history "...in a fair manner, not in a woke manner or in a racist manner." This incident reveals the active political investment in maintaining a sanitized national story.

Thanksgiving stands as one of the most potent examples of this phenomenon. For many in the United States, Thanksgiving is a holiday where family gets together, shares food, and gratitude. However, the foundation of this seemingly wholesome tradition is a myth that has sanitized a history of genocide, violence and theft. As people who seek truth, peace and justice, we must be compelled to look beyond the innocent familiar story and confront what this holiday actually represents. 

From a young age, school curricula and mass media feed us a comforting narrative. We learn about friendly Pilgrims that settled in the New World, who, after a harsh winter, shared a bountiful harvest with their Native American neighbors in 1621. School children dress as pilgrims in black outfits with paper belt buckles and as Native Americans in feathered headbands and act out a play of peaceful coexistence. This story portrays the colonization of the Americas as a benevolent, divinely blessed project. It is a foundational tool of erasure, used to ignore the violent and genocidal beginnings of the nation and, in later years, to prop up white supremacist and anti-immigrant policies.

There is limited historical documentation about the 1621 harvest gathering in Plymouth let alone a record that corroborates the jovial and friendly depiction of the gathering. Historians describe it as a diplomatic meeting and harvest celebration, common in both English and Wampanoag cultures. Following the first pilgrims’ three day harvest in Plymouth in 1621, the indigenous peoples of the area (Wampanoag tribe) and the pilgrims gathered for a diplomatic meeting. Wampanoag tribe members describe this meeting as their biggest mistake. Wamsutta Frank James, a Native American activist and Wampanoag tribe member, posits that the tribe may have welcomed the gathering because they had been depleted by an epidemic brought in by the colonizers or because of the tribe leader’s, Massasoit, knowledge of the oncoming harsh winter. Prior to the settlers’ arrival in Plymouth and the gathering, Europeans had been kidnapping and selling off Native Americans as slaves in Europe. 90 percent of the indigenous inhabitants of where the pilgrims had settled had also been cleared by an epidemic disease a few years prior as a result of early European contact. The gathering was largely forgotten for generations and pales in comparison to other incidents between the colonizers and Indigenous peoples such as the Pequot Massacre and King Philip’s War, which would decimate Native populations.

So how did it become a national holiday? The Thanksgiving we know today was largely invented in the 19th century, almost 250 years after the gathering. As historian James W. Loewen and others have explained, it was crafted by writers and politicians who needed a unifying "founding myth" that portrayed colonization as peaceful and cooperative. In 1863, after a long advocacy campaign by Philadelphia literary editor Sara Josepha Hale, Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving as an annual national holiday during the Civil War, primarily motivated by wartime need for national unity. The holiday, therefore, is not a 400-year-old tradition dating back to a friendly feast. It is a 250-year-old tradition that was consciously built on a sanitized version of history to serve a national political agenda. 

For Native Americans, Thanksgiving has never been a celebration. Since 1970, the United American Indians of New England (UAINE) has organized a National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving Day in Plymouth. They gather to honor Indigenous ancestors, commemorate Native resilience, and protest what they rightly identify as "a reminder of the genocide of millions of Native people, the theft of Native lands, and the erasure of Native cultures.".

As seekers of justice, we cannot simply ignore these truths. We must align our actions with our values. Here are concrete steps we can take to move from complicity in a harmful myth to solidarity with Indigenous peoples.

1. Interrogate National Narratives: We can actively research the true history behind national holidays and monuments. We can seek out the voices, scholarship, and commemorations of the marginalized communities most affected by the events being sanitized. And we can work to replace myth with documented history in our own understanding and conversations.
2. Develop New Rituals: We can support and participate in the alternative observances led by marginalized communities.This may mean attending National Day of Mourning events or Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Ceremonies (Unthanksgiving day) organized in our area during Thanksgiving and  observing Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day, or recognizing Juneteenth as a celebration of emancipation and a reminder of the unfulfilled promise of freedom. 
3. Support Restorative Justice Movements: We can educate ourselves on and lend support to movements that seek to address historical and ongoing harms such as reparations campaigns. For instance, The "Land Back" movement is a growing effort to return stolen Indigenous land to Native stewardship. We can educate ourselves on Land Back campaigns nationally and internationally. We can support ongoing efforts such as the Sogorea Te' Land Trust in the San Francisco Bay Area, which works to return land to Indigenous people. 
4. Open Up Dialogue: We can use our dinner tables, whether on these national holidays or any other day as a space for learning and conversation. We can share the true history with family and friends and break the cycle of silence and omission.
5. Connect the Dots of Colonization: As we stand in solidarity with those resisting colonization in Palestine, Puerto Rico, and Haiti, we must pay equal attention to the internal colonies within the United States. The same logic of displacement, erasure, and resource extraction that operates abroad began right here, on the land we live on. Legitimizing holidays like Thanksgiving or Columbus day continues to normalize this brutal history.

For the years to come, let us choose a deeper gratitude, one rooted not in myth, but in truth. Let our gratitude be expressed through a commitment to justice, through learning the true history of this land, and through active solidarity with its original inhabitants.