I love history, but for some history can feel like a dusty shelf—distant, sepia-toned, cordoned off from our lives by textbooks and grainy
black-and-white photos. But every so often, a story, a date, or a person cracks open time and reminds us just how close history truly is.
For me, it’s this: My grandfather, Ferdinand Green McKenzie, was born on May 14, 1873 (yes, 152 years ago today).
That’s just eight years and one month after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
Let that sit with you for a minute.
Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865, and died the next morning. The Civil War had ended less than a week earlier. America was torn and traumatized. And in less time than it takes to complete two terms in the Senate, my grandfather entered the world.
This is not ancient history. This is my family tree. This is our collective backyard.
History Isn’t “Then,” It’s “Just Before Now”
When we talk about the Civil War, we often place it in the realm of long ago. We imagine candlelight, hoop skirts, black powder rifles, and a country we struggle to recognize. But the truth is, 160 years ago isn’t so long ago—not really. Not when you look at it generationally.
I’m only two generations removed from slavery being legal in the United States. Two generations removed from the Confederacy. Two generations removed from a time when the very question of Black humanity was on the floor of Congress.
And I’m not alone. Many of us walk through life unaware that our family stories stitch us directly to the most painful, transformative moments in American history.
The Myth of “Ancient” America
Americans tend to treat their history like it’s older than it is. Maybe it’s because we’re such a young nation compared to Europe or Asia. Maybe it’s because we’re uncomfortable with how recently we were committing atrocities under the banner of law. Or maybe it’s just the way we teach it—with such formality and detachment that it feels impossibly remote.
But the Civil War is not ancient history.
My grandfather may have been a baby during Reconstruction, but the people who raised him—his parents, his community—lived through the war. They made choices about which side to support, who to shelter, and how to navigate a nation fractured by hate and fear.
They remembered the sound of cannon fire. They saw the bodies. They knew the names of enslaved people whose freedom was debated as if it were theoretical.
When we reduce the Civil War to a chapter in a book, we forget that it was a raw and present reality for the generation that raised our grandparents.
Why This Matters Now
It’s easy—too easy—to say, “That was a long time ago.” We say it to dismiss calls for justice, to downplay the legacy of racism, or to pretend that progress happened in a straight line.
But history has a way of echoing, especially when we refuse to learn from it.
If the Civil War was just two lifetimes ago, then so were the ideologies that fed it. The white supremacy. The fear of change. The refusal to see another human being as fully equal.
Those threads didn’t get cut—they just got woven into new fabrics.
When I think about my grandfather’s birth date, it makes me wonder what he carried from that time. What stories did he hear? What silences shaped his understanding of the world? And how much of that legacy filtered into the lives of his children, and their children, and me?
Living Memory, Fading Awareness
When I was younger, the Civil War felt like the stuff of Ken Burns documentaries—violins and voiceovers and battlefield maps. But now I realize: some of the people who lived through it were alive when my grandfather was a child.
That kind of proximity changes things. It reminds me that the work of healing, of justice, of building a more compassionate country—isn’t done. Because the trauma isn’t as far back as we think.
And neither is the responsibility.
We are still grappling with a nation that has never fully reckoned with its original sins. We still see monuments to the Confederacy in public parks. We still debate history curriculum as if facts are opinions. We still witness systems that disproportionately harm Black and brown bodies.
Understanding how close we are to the Civil War helps us see that we’re not “post-racial.” We’re not finished. We’re still in the story.
A Reminder for Us History Nerds (and Everyone Else)
This is one of those things that nerds think about—how time folds, how history isn’t flat but layered, how the dates in our family Bibles are quiet revolutions in understanding.
When I realized that my grandfather was born just eight years after Lincoln died, it shifted my perspective. It made the timeline wobble. It made the past feel like it could reach out and tap me on the shoulder.
It made me pay more attention.
Because if we’re that close to the Civil War, then we’re also close to the Reconstruction dreams that were dashed. We’re close to the rise of Jim Crow. We’re close to the fight for women’s suffrage and labor rights and civil rights and voting rights. We’re close to the whole arc of “freedom” being expanded, debated, and resisted.
And maybe, just maybe, we’re close to the next bend in the arc—where justice finally gets the last word.
So What Do We Do With That?
We remember. We pay attention to the stories in our own families. We listen for the voices that history tried to silence. We resist the temptation to shrug off the past as something other people lived.
Because we are those people. The past doesn’t just live in books—it lives in us.
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