In the old Soviet Union it was common for people who had fallen out of favor with the communist regime to also fall out of photographs. Long before digital photography made it easy to change our memories, a little air brushing could remove an incon­venient commissar who had been purged since the last worker's holiday. Indeed, Soviet watchers would study every photograph published in newspapers and journals to determine the rise and fall of cold warriors.

The Soviet Union didn't have the corner on the removal of inconvenient people. How many people grew up in our own coun­try not knowing some basic facts about our country's founding? Four decades ago, my parents took us to historic Williamsburg where reenactors sought to bring Colonial America to life. Funny thing — there were no African A…