Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles featuring excerpts from the book “American Solidarity 2026: The Message from History, A Call to Action” by pediatrician and public health practitioner Dr. Matthew G. Masiello.
It was Oct. 18, 2018, when I realized I had either a terrible memory or a limited childhood education. That October night, I was trying to get some rest in a typically uncomfortable hospital on-call room.
With the TV remote in hand, I kept clicking until I came across a documentary about the American eugenics movement.
Full disclosure: I am a novice history enthusiast. My college journey started with a double major in history and biology. I took the road less traveled, dropped the official history coursework, and began the trials and tribulations of studying medicine. That’s for another story.
Watching the documentary, I experienced moments of anger, frustration and ignorance. Why didn’t I know that at one point in American history, mainstream America supported the forced sterilization of people labeled mentally defective?
And it wasn’t just ordinary citizens who backed this eugenic ideology. Prominent Americans of that era – university educators, politicians, Supreme Court justices and scientists – actively supported policies and practices based on eugenics.
What is eugenics? Keep reading, and I will introduce you to eugenics and other historical topics we may not have learned about earlier in school.
It was a real punch to the gut. At the very least, I felt incredibly ignorant – definitely not the feeling you want after finishing college, graduate school and medical school.
So I studied and read about the subject and eventually shared the information with a beloved local high school history teacher. He thoughtfully acknowledged the effort I made in my re-education process. He was also direct in saying that U.S. schools and history books often fail to cover these controversial topics adequately.
His second and more surprising comment was that you can’t teach or fully understand the American eugenics era without recognizing the connection between eugenics and racism in America. I uttered more expletives as I realized that my education still needed to continue.
Visits to libraries and bookstores, along with the review of historical documentaries, took place, accompanied by the realization that artificial intelligence applications can be dependable resources in the re-educational process.
This effort resulted in the publication of a book, or rather a pamphlet, titled “American Solidarity 2026: The Message from History, A Call to Action.”
Writing this helped me form an opinion on how we arrived at our current political and social landscape, and where I believe we need to go. Why a pamphlet instead of a book? Stay with us in the coming weeks to find out.
The kind editors of this local newspaper are giving me the chance to share excerpts from this pamphlet. However, I will refrain from sharing my own opinions from this self-imposed re-education. The readers can form their own.
What I will provide are the moments in American history that helped shape mine.
Full disclosure: Politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, are praised and criticized equally in these writings for their decisions made over the decades. More criticism, I would admit.
These excerpts will hopefully expose you to the links between the eugenics movement and racism in America. They will help you see that Nazism was alive and well not only in Europe, but also in America.
Hopefully, these excerpts will show how the first 250 years of American history involved moments of political brilliance, human kindness and benevolence – but all built on a foundation of strife, violence and bigotry.
Most importantly, I sincerely hope that, by sharing these excerpts, you see the possibilities for the next 250 years and understand what our Founding Fathers hoped for in the years that followed their actions.
Both at the beginning and the end of my pamphlet, “American Solidarity 2026,” I commend the efforts of our Founding Fathers. Their work often took place under dangerous and difficult conditions.
Without the bravery of the militia and various village riders, George Washington, John Adams, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson and others might have been captured. If captured early in the war, they would have faced hanging for treason.
But there was another kind of heroism – American heroism. The British had the largest and most well-trained army and navy in the world.
The colonists had no comparable resources – only what they could gather: the Overmountain Men from the Appalachian backcountry of North Carolina and Virginia, guerrilla fighters from the Carolinas and Georgia, frontier rifle companies from Pennsylvania and Maryland, and the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont.
Although Texas was not a colony, Spanish and Texas ranchers moved thousands of cattle eastward to support the ragtag American fighters.
These heroic individuals and groups, along with farmers, slaves, Native Americans and immigrants who came to America to fight for the freedom and rights the colonists sought, made this a remarkable chapter in our history – the start of our nation.
In the coming weeks, as you read these historical highlights, please think critically about what you learn. Follow up with your own research.
We are entering the 250th year of our existence as a nation, a democratic republic.
Celebrate this milestone by gathering information, developing opinions, and discussing them with family and friends.
Develop a well-educated opinion — your opinion, not someone else’s.