John Garrison Marks

@johngmarks.com

5800 Followers 1155 Following

Historian and writer exploring how Americans engage with the past. **Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory** out now. www.johngmarks.com

In spite of the overall decline in the percentage of American adults reading at least one book each year, their participation in book clubs and reading groups increased (Indicator V-04c). In 2022, approximately 6% of Americans engaged with books in this way, up from 3.5% in 2012. Women were more likely to participate than were men, and the higher a person’s education level the more likely they were to have been part of such a group. Less than 2% of adults with only a high school education participated in a book group, compared to approximately 14% of those with graduate or professional degrees (Indicator V-04d).

At roughly 5 percent, meanwhile, the share of adults who participated in book clubs or reading groups in 2022 did not change significantly from five years earlier. In 2022, for the first time, the SPPA asked the nation’s adults whether they had visited a public library: 23 percent reported having done so. Also new to 2022 SPPA were questions about volunteering in general—20 percent of adults did this activity—and participating in community activities, meetings, or events, which also involved 20 percent of adults. Future NEA research will examine the relationship between participating in the arts and some of these other types of cultural and civic activities.

AI generated image of a man grilling at the beach in various America250-branded items. Uncanny AI food.

Box for the board game “CIVIC QUEST” from the National Constitution Center.

Shot of Presidents House site in Philadelphia, with large surveillance cameras visible.

Baltimore Washington Monument

Navy blue tumbler with ”Free for 250 years and will remain free” and “America’s golden age” written on it

Cover of THY WILL BE DONE

$2.50 unlimited gameplay from Dave and busters for the 250th anniversary

Congress originally created a bipartisan America250 commission in 2016. Planning started under the first Trump administration, and continued through the Biden years. In 2024, former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush agreed to serve as the Commission’s national co-chairs.

When Trump took office a second time, he first installed a 25-year-old former Fox News producer, Ariel Abergel, and Trump campaign officials to direct it. The commission fired Abergel in September, in part over his efforts to make the celebration about Trump rather than the country’s 250th birthday. In December, Trump dispensed with the bipartisan commission entirely: he announced Freedom 250. It’s a limited liability company that exists within a congressionally chartered nonprofit, the National Park Foundation. It’s the official fundraiser for the National Parks Service.

Navy tshirt with "SEMIQUINCENTENNIALS" in red with a bald eagle wearing an Uncle Sam hat.

Commemorative coin with bald eagle over a banner that reads WE HOLD THESE TRUDS. Designed by AI.

AI models who look identical, swapping a gift

Red hat with embroidered bald eagle, Statue of Liberty, liberty bell, designed by AI

AI couple in a Costco-like store, with matching 250 hats, under a big aisle sign that says RAT

Screenshot from “Reframing History” report available at AASLH.org

Website screenshot for: Freedom 250, PATRIOT GAMES. 2026 submission portal. Competition dates: August 9th to 11th. Televised finale: August 13th.

Cover of "Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory," featuring an image from artist Titus Kaphar depicting a portrait of George Washington obscured by a shredded document nailed over his face, the runaway advertisement he placed to try to re-enslave the self-emancipated woman Ona Judge.

“Eric Taylor, Kingmaker” magazine cover from the Friday Night Lights TV show.

A small white dog standing defiantly on a wooden outdoor dining table.

Metro station advertisement that reads SAP NS2, Celebrating 250 years of American independence.

From "The picture of New-York, or, the traveller's guide..." (1800). Text: "Mistakes, when they once get into books, are often very difficult to correct. They are but too often continued from one edition to another without alteration. And thus they diffuse and perpetuate error from generation to generation."

The Bog of Eternal Stench from the movie Labryinth.

IHOP menu game asking pancake kids to choose “old timey” artifact from the 90s to distract a crossing guard.

That groups with so little in common politically—nineteenth-century abolitionists, modern conservative education reformers, and now the Trump Administration—have all emphasized Washington’s opposition to slavery (while excluding the mountains of evidence revealing his lifelong involvement in it) reveals the ways Washington’s contradictory legacy with slavery has been manipulated to support a wide range of causes. That the same cherry-picking of Washington’s history with slavery can be used to support such different political goals highlights that Americans have always viewed history not just as a window into another time, but also a mirror reflecting their own. Even those who have taken the opposite approach, denouncing Washington as a slaveowner to emphasize the deep roots of American racial injustice, often leave out huge parts of the story.

When it comes to George Washington and slavery, today’s debates about our history have been transformed by our history—by centuries of selective remembering and forgetting—in ways we rarely recognize.

To do differently, to try to absorb these contradictions all at once and make sense of them, is a tall order. Laying bare the complexity of Washington’s involvement in slavery would require visitors to sit with discomfort, to lean in to ambiguity. More than anything else, it would demand that many people tell a different story about America and what it represents. It would mean admitting that history’s answers aren’t always what we want them to be—and that sometimes it doesn’t offer us clear answers at all.

Opening Day lineup card of game between the Phillies and the Rangers. Kyle Higashioka pinch hit mid-game.

America250 July 4 concert announcement, with Chris Stapleton and Smashing Pumpkins in LA.

Convenience store display of Monster Energy's 250th anniversary special edition cans.

Spam email pretending to be editorial director at Penguin, emailing me about my book

Ongoing construction on the National Mall.

American flag 250th anniversary water in an aluminum screw top can

Fenced off national mall with stacks of plywood and ongoing construction, presumably for the Great American State Fair.

"THE PROBLEM IS WHETHER THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE LOYALTY ENOUGH, HONOR ENOUGH, PATRIOTISM ENOUGH, TO LIVE UP TO THEIR OWN CONSTITUTION." Frederick Douglass. Quoted on the "Nation's Gun Show" website.

And yet here I am—here we all are—endlessly checking our phones, feeling its phantom buzz in our pockets on the rare occasions when we’re not actively looking at it. To put it simply, not just for the graduating class but for everyone here listening: through our addiction to smartphones and social media, we are voluntarily reducing our cognitive abilities, our attention spans, our critical thinking, and our capacity for human connection. These are the things that make us human, and we’re actively destroying them with little benefit in return.

Aggressively patriotic monster energy

Bruce Banner asks if it would be so bad if the British won the Revolution, considering they abolished slavery 30+ years before the US

Series of 5 Marvel “1776” comic books

"McDonald's Brings Back Beloved Snack Rat" with a picture of a rat in a wrap with lettuce and tomato.

Bookstore wall lined with copies of THY WILL BE DONE, spaced out and cover facing out.

Politics & Prose, May 15, 7pm

Discussion of THY WILL BE DONE with John Garrison Marks and Clint Smith