John Bankston has an interesting story. His story is a lesson for historians about how mistaken identity and assumptions in research can result in confusion in America’s story.
Especially these days, there seems to be a rush to revisit prior research to correct or reinterpret it as technology has permitted a more complete view of the facts and evidence. Sometimes corrections are needed for accuracy; sometimes they are not.
Occasionally, I run into an oversight in perfectly good research intended to correct a story, but because only one fact is corrected, it seems to nullify an otherwise historically accurate story. This is the case with John Bankston…