This fight isn’t about blocking history or erasing the country’s sins but drawing a line between hifalutin political advocacy and thorough, truthful instruction in the American past.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is part of the fierce reaction to the civil rights movement and its drive to provide equal justice to all, by correcting the entrenched inequities in our system as they apply to women, gays and lesbians and particularly Blacks and other people of color. Every movement for reconstruction in this country has triggered a reaction — and DeSantis sees political benefit in making himself a leader of that reaction.