{"id":131723,"date":"2025-03-29T14:06:36","date_gmt":"2025-03-29T14:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/critics-see-trump-attacks-on-the-black-smithsonian-as-an-effort-to-sanitize-racism-in-us-history-the-associated-press\/"},"modified":"2025-03-29T14:06:36","modified_gmt":"2025-03-29T14:06:36","slug":"critics-see-trump-attacks-on-the-black-smithsonian-as-an-effort-to-sanitize-racism-in-us-history-the-associated-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/critics-see-trump-attacks-on-the-black-smithsonian-as-an-effort-to-sanitize-racism-in-us-history-the-associated-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Critics see Trump attacks on the 'Black Smithsonian' as an effort to sanitize racism in US history – The Associated Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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)
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)
The sculpture DNA Study Revisited by artist Roberto Lugo, part of the exhibition The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is seen on Friday, March 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)
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)
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)
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)
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)
The sculpture DNA Study Revisited by artist Roberto Lugo, part of the exhibition The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is seen on Friday, March 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)
The sculpture DNA Study Revisited by artist Roberto Lugo, part of the exhibition The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is seen on Friday, March 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)
ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump\u2019s order<\/a><\/span> accusing the Smithsonian Institution of not reflecting American history notes correctly that the country\u2019s Founding Fathers declared that \u201call men are created equal.\u201d
But it doesn\u2019t mention that the founders enshrined slavery into the U.S. Constitution and declared enslaved persons as three-fifths of a person<\/a><\/span> for the purpose of the Census.
Civil rights advocates, historians and Black political leaders sharply rebuked Trump on Friday for his order, entitled \u201cRestoring Truth and Sanity to American History.\u201d They argued that his executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution is his administration\u2019s latest move to downplay how race, racism and Black Americans themselves have shaped the nation\u2019s story.
\u201cIt seems like we\u2019re headed in the direction where there\u2019s 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,\u201d said historian Clarissa Myrick-Harris, a professor at Morehouse College, the historically Black campus in Atlanta.
The Thursday executive order<\/a><\/span> cites the National Museum of African American History and Culture by name and argues that the Smithsonian as a whole is engaging in a \u201cconcerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation\u2019s history.\u201d
Instead of celebrating an \u201cunparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness,\u201d the order argues that a \u201ccorrosive \u2026 divisive, race-centered ideology\u201d has \u201creconstructed\u201d the nation \u201cas inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.\u201d<\/p>\n

It empowers Vice President JD Vance to review all properties, programs and presentations to prohibit programs that \u201cdegrade shared American values\u201d or \u201cdivide Americans based on race.\u201d
Trump also ordered Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to determine if any monuments since January 2020 \u201chave been removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history\u201d or \u201cinappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures.\u201d 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\u2019 contributions to the nation and to gloss over the legal, political, social and economic obstacles they have faced.
Trump\u2019s approach is \u201ca literal attack on Black America itself,\u201d Ibram X. Kendi, the race historian and bestselling author, said. \u201cThe Black Smithsonian, as it is affectionately called, is indeed one of the heartbeats of Black America,\u201d Kendi argued, and \u201calso one of the heartbeats\u201d 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.
\u201cWe do not run from or erase our history simply because we don\u2019t like it,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201cWe embrace the history of our country \u2013 the good, the bad, and the ugly.\u201d
The African American museum, one of 21 distinct Smithsonian entities, opened<\/a><\/span> along the National Mall in 2016, the last year that President Barack Obama held office as the nation\u2019s 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 \u2014 enslaved persons and their descendants, women, Native Americans \u2014 are necessary because historical narratives from previous generations misrepresented those individuals or overlooked them altogether.
\u201cAttempts to tell the general history of the country always omit too much … and the place that we\u2019ve come to by having these museums is so we can, in total, do a better job of telling the complete story of this country,\u201d 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.
\u201cI\u2019m 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,\u201d Trump said following a tour<\/a><\/span> that included Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and then-Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, both of whom are Black.
\u201cI know President Obama was here for the museum\u2019s opening last fall,\u201d Trump continued. \u201cI\u2019m honored to be the second sitting president to visit this great museum.\u201d
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 \u201cwoke\u201d culture<\/a><\/span> and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, not just in government but the private sector. He also used racist and sexist tropes<\/a><\/span> 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 \u201chating our country.\u201d
Since his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump has banned diversity initiatives across the federal government. The administration has launched investigations of colleges \u2014 public and private \u2014 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<\/a><\/span> and an online biography<\/a><\/span> of Jackie Robinson. In February, Trump fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr.<\/a><\/span>, a champion of racial diversity in the military, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Brown, in the wake of Floyd\u2019s killing, had spoken publicly about his experiences<\/a><\/span> as a Black man, and was only the second Black general to serve as chairman.
The administration has fired diversity officers<\/a><\/span> across government, curtailed some agencies\u2019 celebrations<\/a><\/span> of Black History Month, and terminated grants and contracts for projects ranging from planting trees in disadvantaged communities<\/a><\/span> to studying achievement gaps in American schools<\/a><\/span>.
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 \u2014 such as San Francisco\u2019s 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 \u2014 exist with little to no federal or other governmental funding sources. Some already are struggling to keep their doors open.
\u201cTo me, that\u2019s part of the plan, to starve these institutions that are already starving of resources so that the only institutions that are telling America\u2019s history are actually only telling political propaganda,\u201d Kendi said.
Associated Press journalists Aaron Morrison in New York and Gary Fields in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.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)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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":131724,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}