The Quiet in History – Listening to What’s Left Out

That lesson hit me again in AP U.S. History. We were studying groups of people whose voices were left out of the traditional narrative: enslaved people, women, Indigenous nations, and immigrants. Their stories were there all along, just not in the textbooks written by those in power.

It reminded me of the saying, “History is written by the victors.” Or maybe more accurately, it’s written by the wealthy, the literate, and the loud.

But what about everyone else?

The silences in history tell us just as much as the words on the page. The absence of certain voices, people who were too poor, too oppressed, or too marginalized to be heard, speaks volumes about whose stories we value. Those gaps aren’t empty; they’re full of meaning, waiting for someone willing to listen closely enough to fill them in.

That’s why I think silence shouldn’t always be seen as a lack of something. Sometimes it’s a form of resistance. It can be the quiet strength of communities who survive without recognition or the stillness that comes before change. It’s a reminder that power doesn’t always sound loud.

In a way, studying history and studying silence are the same thing. Both require patience, empathy, and a willingness to look deeper than the surface. Whether it’s in a classroom or behind a camera, I’ve learned that giving space to the quiet, to the overlooked and unheard, can reveal truths that words alone never could.

Because sometimes, the loudest stories are the ones told in silence.