One of President Trump’s latest executive orders is stirring up serious backlash, and for good reason. The new order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” goes after the Smithsonian Institution—specifically the National Museum of African American History and Culture—accusing it of pushing a “divisive, race-centered ideology.”
But here’s the thing: the executive order leaves out key facts about America’s history, like how the Founding Fathers enshrined slavery in the Constitution and declared enslaved people to be three-fifths of a person.
As ESSENCE previously reported, the order puts Vice President J.D. Vance in charge of reviewing museum content and gives Interior Secretary Doug Burgum the power to investigate whether any monuments have been removed or altered “to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history.” In other words, it’s a direct effort to rewrite history to fit the president’s narrative—one that erases the impact of racism and Black contributions to the nation.
Back in 2017, at the start of his first term, Trump actually praised the National Museum of African American History and Culture, saying that he was “deeply proud we now a museum that honors the millions of African American men and women who built our national heritage.” Now, he’s leading an effort to undermine the very institution he once called a treasure. But historians and Black leaders aren’t backing down. As Clarke put it: “Let’s be clear, Black history is American history. Any rhetoric that opposes this notion is not only factually incorrect but blatantly racist.”
Historians, civil rights advocates and Black political leaders are not having it. Here’s what they had to say about the latest attempt to whitewash history.
“The Black Smithsonian, as it is affectionately called, is indeed one of the heartbeats of Black America. Also, one of the heartbeats of the nation at large.” Kendi, a renowned historian and author, called Trump’s order “a literal attack on Black America itself” and warned that it’s part of a larger strategy to starve Black institutions of resources. “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 told the Associated Press.
“There is nothing divisive or improper about telling the truth. We reject this administration’s relentless efforts to whitewash our nation’s history.” Clarke and the Congressional Black Caucus issued a strong statement denouncing Trump’s order as “patently ridiculous,” emphasizing that it is the Trump administration—not historians—that is distorting history while falsely accusing others of doing so. “We do not run from or erase our history simply because it makes us uncomfortable. We fully embrace the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
“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.” Myrick-Harris, a professor at Morehouse College, warned that this move is about more than just museums—it’s an attempt to erase the truth about America’s past.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett condemned the move, calling it part of a broader effort to erase marginalized voices from both the present and the past. “First Trump removes any reference of diversity from the present—now he’s trying to remove it from our history,” Crockett wrote on X. “Let me be PERFECTLY clear—you cannot erase our past, and you cannot stop us from fulfilling our future.”
“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.” Jealous pushed back against the idea that recognizing Black history is divisive, arguing that museums dedicated to marginalized groups exist precisely because mainstream history has ignored them for so long.
