Voices of Misi-ziibi: Beltrami County’s 250th Anniversary Exhibit

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary in 2026, history is at a crossroads. This milestone should be a chance to reflect honestly on our shared past, but instead, it's at risk of becoming a pageant. Across the country, we’re seeing plans for fireworks, flags, and federally mandated “unity.” What’s being lost is the heart of public history: people’s voices, complicated truths, and the right to ask hard questions.

We believe the 250th should be more than a parade. It should be more than statues in the desert.

Image: Anishinaabe Gauntlet Gloves, c. 20th century. Crafted from soft leather and adorned with glass beads, this pair of gauntlets showcases both Woodland floral beadwork, a style rooted in Ojibwe tradition, and patriotic motifs, including U.S. flags and stars. The floral designs reflect Anishinaabe relationships with plant life, medicine, and seasonal teachings, while the American symbols likely signify military service or dual cultural identity. This blending of design elements reflects the resilience and complexity of Native expression across generations.  From the John Morrison Native American Collection, Beltrami County Historical Society.

Defending the Full Story: Why the 250th Anniversary Demands More Than a Parade

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary in 2026, history is at a crossroads.

For public historians, educators, and everyday Americans alike, this milestone presents an opportunity to reflect on the full sweep of the nation’s past: its founding ideals and unfulfilled promises, triumphs and traumas. But instead of creating space for this complexity, recent federal actions are narrowing it.

Over the past year, multiple executive orders have directly targeted the institutions responsible for preserving and interpreting our shared history. These orders have drastically curtailed the work of agencies like the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and even the Smithsonian Institution itself. Through budget freezes, staff suspensions, and new mandates, these orders aim to limit public history to a narrow, triumphalist version of the American past.

We reject that.

History Is Not a Performance

History is not patriotic theater. It is not a parade of slogans. It is the careful, community-rooted work of listening, remembering, and telling the truth.

To erase the painful or complex parts of our past—slavery, genocide, forced removal, segregation, economic injustice, or the exclusion of women and immigrants—is to do violence to the very idea of history. And it betrays the service and sacrifice of those who fought for justice and truth.

At the Beltrami County Historical Society, we believe honoring our nation means honoring all of it: its freedoms and its failures. That includes telling the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. That includes celebrating the real contributions of veterans, workers, immigrants, and community builders, not through spectacle but through shared stories.

Voices of Misi-ziibi: Beltrami County’s 250th Anniversary Exhibit

Rather than join a top-down pageant of patriotic messaging, we're doing what we do best: listening to local voices.

Voices of Misi-ziibi: Many Currents, A Nation’s Story is our 250th anniversary exhibit and community history project, opening in 2026. It asks: What does the story of America look like when it begins here, at the headwaters of the Mississippi River?

Misi-ziibi—meaning “Great River” in Ojibwe—is where this river begins. So does our story.

This project will:

• Center stories from Ojibwe/Anishinaabe communities, whose histories long predate the United States.

• Explore themes of water, migration, identity, labor, and civic life across generations.

• Feature oral histories, family photos, and artifacts shared by community members

• Highlight how Beltrami County residents have shaped, challenged, and reimagined the meaning of “America” in their everyday lives.

Rather than a single national narrative, we are curating a local mosaic of voices—veterans, activists, teachers, workers, storytellers, and survivors. Voices of Misi-ziibi is not about erasing history. It’s about expanding it.

To share your story, artifact, or memory, email depot@beltramihistory.org or visit beltramihistory.org.

Belonging in Beltrami: A Foundation-Funded Community and Citizenship Course

History lives not only in the past, but in how we participate in civic life today. That’s why we’re launching a new initiative in 2025: Belonging in Beltrami: A Foundation-Funded Community and Citizenship Course. This free, public program is made possible through a generous grant from the Northwest Minnesota Foundation and offered in partnership with the Bemidji Public Library.

Designed to support immigrants and aspiring U.S. citizens, Belonging in Beltrami provides tools and community for navigating the naturalization process while also deepening participants’ connection to this region’s unique civic history.

Course elements include:

• Support for the U.S. citizenship exam and interview

• Discussion of U.S. government structure and responsibilities

• Exploration of local histories of immigration, tribal sovereignty, and democracy

• Guest speakers, including naturalized citizens, veterans, tribal leaders, and historians

• Community storytelling and reflection

We believe citizenship is not just a legal status—it’s a relationship with people, place, and history. This course brings that belief to life.

For upcoming sessions or to register, email depot@beltramihistory.org or check our website at beltramihistory.org.

What’s at Stake

If it feels like these efforts are urgent, it’s because they are.

The federal government's recent actions include:

• Executive Order 14253: “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”, which orders the Smithsonian to remove exhibits labeled “improper,” particularly those that explore systemic racism, gender identity, or colonial violence. It also calls for the restoration of removed Confederate monuments.

• Severe cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities, halting over 1,200 grants and defunding dozens of state humanities councils.

• A directive to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the agency that supports interlibrary loan systems, rural archives, and educational museum programs across the country.

• Narrative mandates for the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission that discourage inclusive or critical historical reflection in favor of a singular “positive” portrayal of the nation’s past.

The result? An attempt to collapse public memory into a narrow myth that serves political agendas, not truth or democracy.

Take Action: Help Us Tell the Full Story

We cannot wait for someone else to defend history. We have to do it ourselves—together, right here.

If you or your family have photos, artifacts, oral histories, or reflections that relate to life along the Mississippi River, the histories of Indigenous peoples, settlers, veterans, workers, or everyday Minnesotans, please share them with us. This is your history too. Please help us preserve, honor, and pass it on.

Even as national institutions face censorship and funding cuts, local historical societies like ours remain at the forefront of truth-telling. But we can’t do it without your help.

Here’s what you can do:

• Please share your story: Reach out or visit us at 130 Minnesota Ave. SW, Bemidji, MN. We welcome your photos, recordings, and family histories.

• Volunteer or donate: Your time and support sustain our work and mission.

• Speak up: Contact your state and federal representatives. Let them know that public history, libraries, and museums matter.

• Stay engaged: Attend our programs, bring your kids, and invite friends to learn with you. Democracy depends on informed people.

Our history is too important to outsource. It’s ours to defend, ours to remember, and ours to tell—entirely, truthfully, and together.