When walking through the National Museum of African American History and Culture, I was presented with many images and stories of African American soldiers, dating back as far as the Revolutionary War. At first, I did not think much of it, but upon reading more stories about these men and women, I became aware of a much more harrowing truth.

From the beginning of our nation’s history, African Americans fought bravely for a country that denied them freedom or civil rights. In our country’s early wars, African American soldiers were promised freedom in exchange for their military service; but that promise was rarely kept. The cycle of fighting and false promises would continue, achieving nothing but death and destruction. African American soldiers repeatedly fought courageously, and yet were kept without freedom. During the World Wars, when segregation plagued the United States, African American veterans were given virtually no recognition compared to the white soldiers who had fought in the same war. When they returned from war, they were still treated as second-class citizens, as if their heroism had meant nothing. How grossly hypocritical, I thought, that a country founded upon the belief that all men were equal and had inalienable human rights would not guarantee those rights to the very men and women who fought so valiantly to defend them. How could we fight the German Nazis, who promoted a philosophy of racial superiority, and act as though we were not guilty of that same racial superiority?

I am glad that in this day and age, veterans can be treated with the same amount of respect regardless of race, but I still think that we have a long way to go. Some of our country’s own politicians and lawmakers have made remarks saying that women are unfit to serve in our military, or that people of certain religions could not make trustworthy soldiers. The transgender ban in our military carries no more innocence than the way in which we insisted on treating our African American veterans, and is perhaps even worse, for how could a government deny any person the ability to protect their country and the freedoms which they hold dear? To say that any person, based on the body which they were born with, whether it be black or white, male or female, Christian or Muslim, is unfit to serve in the military is contradictory to the very beliefs upon which this country was founded. Americans should strive to respect and honor our soldiers and veterans, lest our children witness a similar injustice in the museums of the future.