Truth on Trial: Selective Memory — Who Got Written Out and Why It Still Matters

Part 6 of 7 in the “Truth on Trial” Series from JackRighteous.com

When Memory Is a Weapon

History is not just what happened. It’s what’s allowed to be remembered.

And in Christian nationalist circles, memory is being weaponized.

By glorifying a selective past—while erasing the messy, the radical, the inconvenient—today’s movement builds a myth. A sanitized story where faith always aligned with empire, and the oppressed never cried out for justice.

A Pattern of Erasure

Throughout modern U.S. history, voices who dared to stand for the poor, the hungry, and the excluded have often been met with more than censorship—they were silenced. Permanently.

Take Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was not assassinated at the height of his civil rights fame—but after he began speaking out against capitalism, poverty, and the Vietnam War. When he launched the Poor People’s Campaign, uniting Black, Latino, and white working-class communities, he became more dangerous to the state.

And he wasn’t the only one.

The "Every Man a King" Threat: Huey Long

Huey P. Long, a white Southern populist senator, was no Marxist—but his “Share Our Wealth” program in the 1930s proposed wealth caps, guaranteed incomes, and food access for all.

• In 1934, he launched a nationwide campaign to form local “Share-Our-Wealth” chapters
• A private poll in 1935 showed he could’ve won 4 million votes—enough to disrupt the next presidential election
• He was assassinated that same year, just weeks before announcing a presidential run

He was not Black. He was not poor. But he defied the oligarchy—and that was enough.

Patterns in the Shadows

Other leaders who prioritized the poor and defied elite power also met sudden deaths or sabotage:

• Fred Hampton – Shot in his bed by a state-backed raid after organizing free breakfast programs and multiracial alliances in Chicago
• Malcolm X – Assassinated after turning his message toward global injustice and unity beyond race
• Medgar Evers – Gunned down for organizing Black voters and protesting systemic poverty in Mississippi
• Dorothy Day – Smeared and surveilled by the FBI for her Catholic Worker movement feeding and housing the homeless
• Oscar Romero (El Salvador) – Killed while speaking against government violence toward the poor
• Berta Cáceres (Honduras) – Indigenous land defender and anti-poverty activist, murdered after years of death threats—U.S.-trained military officials were implicated

Even clergy who stayed “non-political” but fed the hungry were watched by domestic intelligence. Feeding the poor—without permission—became seen as subversive.

🧠 Project 2025 and the War on Food Justice

The agenda behind Project 2025 explicitly seeks to dismantle federal food programs under the guise of “efficiency” and “family values.”

• SNAP (food stamps) and school lunch programs are targeted for elimination or severe restriction
• “Welfare to work” models are promoted to shame the poor into labor dependency
• Faith-based charity is framed as the only moral safety net—if the church doesn’t feed you, you don’t eat
• Grassroots mutual aid networks are demonized as radical or anti-American

The goal isn’t just policy change. It’s control—over who eats, who starves, and who gets to be remembered.

The Sanitized Past vs. the Radical Christ

The modern Christian nationalist movement doesn’t want you to remember these stories.

• They want a tame King—a “Dream” with no Poor People’s Campaign
• They want a whitewashed Jesus who multiplies bread but never overturns tables
• They want tradition without accountability, charity without redistribution

“When the past is edited to preserve power, it becomes propaganda.”

Project 2025 and the Revision of Truth

Project 2025 is not just about laws. It’s about legacy.

• It rewrites Christian history to erase dissenters
• It reframes social justice as Marxism or heresy
• It casts empire as the hero—and prophets as threats

And it does so with full support from pulpits, pastors, and power brokers.

📌 Memory as a Tool of Oppression

Project 2025’s war on public memory includes:

• Cutting funding for humanities, civics, and Black history education
• Attacking libraries and public broadcasters who preserve radical voices
• Banning school curricula that mention systemic poverty or U.S. imperialism
• Rewriting national identity through a Christian nationalist lens

This is Why the Real History Still Matters

The oppressed didn’t just survive—they spoke, organized, and often paid with their lives.

The goal of the “Truth on Trial” series is not to mourn the past. It’s to remember what they wanted us to forget:

• That Christianity’s roots were radical and disruptive
• That speaking for the poor has always been seen as dangerous
• That the same forces behind the cross now wield the flag

Where Do We Go From Here?

In Part 7, the final installment, we examine what it means to stand in truth now—when lies are mainstreamed, pulpits are weaponized, and memory is manipulated.

Because if we do not tell the truth, someone else will tell it for us.

Keep the Record Alive:

• 🔹 Share this article with someone who thinks Jesus never challenged the rich
• 🔹 Subscribe to The Righteous Beat to follow the final chapter
• 🔹 Comment: Whose story have you seen erased—and why do you think it happened?

Continue Reading the “Truth on Trial” Series:

• Part 5: Plantation Pulpits — Jesus in the Image of the Slaveholder
• Part 7: Speaking Truth When the Lie Is Law (Coming Soon)