Critics see Trump attacks on the 'Black Smithsonian' as an effort to
sanitize racism in US history
[March 29, 2025]
By BILL BARROW
ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump's order accusing the Smithsonian
Institution of not reflecting American history notes correctly that the
country's Founding Fathers declared that “all men are created equal.”
But it doesn't mention that the founders enshrined slavery into the U.S.
Constitution and declared enslaved persons as three-fifths of a person
for the purpose of the Census.
Civil rights advocates, historians and Black political leaders sharply
rebuked Trump on Friday for his order, entitled “Restoring Truth and
Sanity to American History.” They argued that his executive order
targeting the Smithsonian Institution is his administration’s latest
move to downplay how race, racism and Black Americans themselves have
shaped the nation’s story.
“It seems like we’re headed in the direction where there’s even an
attempt to deny that the institution of slavery even existed, or that
Jim Crow laws and segregation and racial violence against Black
communities, Black families, Black individuals even occurred,” said
historian Clarissa Myrick-Harris, a professor at Morehouse College, the
historically Black campus in Atlanta.
The Thursday executive order cites the National Museum of African
American History and Culture by name and argues that the Smithsonian as
a whole is engaging in a “concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our
Nation’s history.”
Instead of celebrating an “unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty,
individual rights, and human happiness,” the order argues that a
“corrosive … divisive, race-centered ideology” has “reconstructed” the
nation “as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise
irredeemably flawed.”
It empowers Vice President JD Vance to review all properties, programs
and presentations to prohibit programs that “degrade shared American
values” or “divide Americans based on race.”
Trump also ordered Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to determine if any
monuments since January 2020 “have been removed or changed to perpetuate
a false reconstruction of American history” or “inappropriately minimize
the value of certain historical events or figures.” Trump has long
criticized the removal of Confederate monuments, a movement that gained
steam after the May 2020 murder of George Floyd.
Critics argued the order is the latest move by the Trump administration
to quash recognition of Black Americans’ contributions to the nation and
to gloss over the legal, political, social and economic obstacles they
have faced.
Trump’s approach is “a literal attack on Black America itself,” Ibram X.
Kendi, the race historian and bestselling author, said. “The Black
Smithsonian, as it is affectionately called, is indeed one of the
heartbeats of Black America,” Kendi argued, and “also one of the
heartbeats” of the nation at large.
Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., suggested that
Trump wants to distort the national narrative to racist ends.
“We do not run from or erase our history simply because we don’t like
it,” she said in a statement. “We embrace the history of our country –
the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
Trump once praised the ‘Black Smithsonian’
The African American museum, one of 21 distinct Smithsonian entities,
opened along the National Mall in 2016, the last year that President
Barack Obama held office as the nation’s first Black chief executive.
The museum chronicles chattel slavery, Jim Crow segregation and its
lingering effects, but also highlights the determination, successes and
contributions of individual Black Americans and Black institutions
throughout U.S. history.
Former NAACP President Ben Jealous, who now leads the Sierra Club, said
museums that focus on specific minority or marginalized groups —
enslaved persons and their descendants, women, Native Americans — are
necessary because historical narratives from previous generations
misrepresented those individuals or overlooked them altogether.
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The National Museum of African American History and Culture on the
National Mall is seen on Friday, March 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP
Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
“Attempts to tell the general history of the country always omit too
much ... and the place that we’ve come to by having these museums is
so we can, in total, do a better job of telling the complete story
of this country,” he said.
And, indeed, Trump sounded more like Jealous when he visited the
African American museum in 2017, at the outset of his first term,
and declared it a national gem.
“I’m deeply proud that we now have a museum that honors the millions
of African American men and women who built our national heritage,
especially when it comes to faith, culture and the unbreakable
American spirit,” Trump said following a tour that included Sen. Tim
Scott of South Carolina and then-Housing and Urban Development
Secretary Ben Carson, both of whom are Black.
“I know President Obama was here for the museum’s opening last
fall,” Trump continued. “I’m honored to be the second sitting
president to visit this great museum.”
Trump's war on ‘woke’ targets history
Trump won his comeback White House bid with a notable uptick in
support from non-white voters, especially among younger Black and
Hispanic men.
He ratcheted up attacks during his campaign on what he labeled
“woke” culture and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, not
just in government but the private sector. He also used racist and
sexist tropes to attack Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala
Harris, the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to
hold national office, and regularly accused her and other liberals
of “hating our country.”
Since his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump has banned diversity
initiatives across the federal government. The administration has
launched investigations of colleges — public and private — that it
accuses of discriminating against white and Asian students with
race-conscious admissions programs intended to address historic
inequities in access for Black students.
The Defense Department, at one point, temporarily removed training
videos recognizing the Tuskegee Airmen and an online biography of
Jackie Robinson. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired Joint Chiefs
Gen. C.Q. Brown, a champion of racial diversity in the military who
spoke about his experiences as a Black man after the murder of
George Floyd.
The administration has fired diversity officers across government,
curtailed some agencies' celebrations of Black History Month, and
terminated grants and contracts for projects ranging from planting
trees in disadvantaged communities to studying achievement gaps in
American schools.
Warnings of a chilling effect
Civil rights advocates and historians expressed concern about a
chilling effect across other institutions that study Black history.
Kendi noted that many museums and educational centers across the
country — such as San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora,
The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration in
Montgomery, Alabama, and the International African American Museum
in Charleston, South Carolina — exist with little to no federal or
other governmental funding sources. Some already are struggling to
keep their doors open.
“To me, that’s part of the plan, to starve these institutions that
are already starving of resources so that the only institutions that
are telling America’s history are actually only telling political
propaganda,” Kendi said.
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Associated Press journalists Aaron Morrison in New York and Gary
Fields in Washington contributed to this report.
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