{"id":133548,"date":"2025-04-13T13:27:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T13:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-sets-sights-on-national-african-american-history-museum-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2025-04-13T13:27:23","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T13:27:23","slug":"trump-sets-sights-on-national-african-american-history-museum-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-sets-sights-on-national-african-american-history-museum-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump sets sights on national African American history museum – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2012 Adam Sanchez\u00a0 remembers tears streaming down a student\u2019s face as his high school class left the lower level of the\u00a0National African American Museum of History and Culture<\/a>\u00a0a few of years ago.
\u201cEveryone understood why he had tears in his eyes,” said Sanchez, a former high school history teacher.
Sanchez gathered his students there on a field trip from New York City in a quiet space to reflect on the exhibits on slavery and the Middle Passage. \u201cIt was such a powerful experience for all of them,\u201d he said.
The Smithsonian Institution\u00a0museum opened with much fanfare\u00a0<\/a>nine years ago and has been lauded for its mission to share the good and the bad of the Black experience in America, including slavery.\u00a0Now, it\u2019s\u00a0also\u00a0in the sights of President Donald Trump<\/a>, who called its work part of a \u201cwidespread effort to rewrite our nation\u2019s history.\u201d
“Museums in our nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn \u2012 not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history,”\u00a0Trump said in a recent executive order<\/a>\u00a0about parks and museums.
It’s not clear what Trump’s directive will mean for the national African American museum, if anything. But its director, Kevin Young,\u00a0stepped down April 4,<\/a>\u00a0a little more than a week after Trump’s executive order.
The museum, which hosted 1.6 million visitors in 2024, serves as a cornerstone in the preservation of African American history, a number of community leaders and organizations said in its defense.
\u201cFrom slavery to civil rights to the cultural innovations that continue to shape the world, the museum ensures these stories are not forgotten, denied, or politicized,\u2019\u2019 the National Council of Negro Women said in a statement.
\u201cAnything under the sun is susceptible,” said Vedet Coleman-Robinson, executive director of the Association of African American Museums. \u201cIt would be a travesty to not have your culture-specific museums anywhere in the country, but definitely in the (nation\u2019s) capital.\u201d
Sanchez took 15 students from Harvest Collegiate High School\u00a0on the field trip to the African American museumin 2017, the same week\u00a0as Trump\u2019s first inauguration. Sanchez had taught classes\u00a0onslavery and Reconstruction and another on the civil rights movement.
\u201cI knew that the museum was going to bring this history to life in a way that you couldn\u2019t in the classroom,\u2019\u2019 said Sanchez,\u00a0now\u00a0managing editor of Rethinking School, a social justice teaching publication. \u201cAnd it certainly did.\u201d
Nakiyah Rowe,\u00a0then a student on the trip, said it gave her a sense of strength and pride.
\u201cThe museum highlights the deep, complex history of African Americans and their contributions to this country,\u2019” she wrote\u00a0in a recent note shared with USA TODAY.
And, she said, it plays a crucial role in educating society “about the rich, complex, and often overlooked history of African Americans.”
Schools have long overlooked important aspects of African American history, said Bryan Stevenson, founder of the\u00a0Equal Justice Initiative,<\/a>\u00a0a human rights organization pushing to end mass incarceration.
The organization has a museum and a sculpture park<\/a> in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to telling the story of the African American experience, including slavery, in America.
\u201cI don’t think schools have ever done a great job of teaching people about many aspects of our history,” he said. \u201cThat’s why you go to the Smithsonian. That’s why you go to spaces that are trying to fill those gaps.”
In Trump’s recent order, \u201cRestoring truth and sanity to American history<\/a>,” he complained the Smithsonian has \u201ccome under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.”
\u201cThis shift has promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive,” he said.
Those teachings make America look bad and undermine its achievements, Trump and some conservatives have said. \u201cWe will restore the Smithsonian Institution to its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness,” the order\u00a0reads.
It calls for Vice President JD Vance\u00a0to join\u00a0in a role with\u00a0the Smithsonian Board of Regents tohelp\u00a0map out\u00a0new\u00a0policies. It prohibits\u00a0spending on exhibits or programs \u201cthat degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.”
The African American history museum\u00a0is singled out in Trump’s order putting\u00a0it in the spotlight, despite its millions of\u00a0visitors.
During his first term,\u00a0<\/strong>Trump\u00a0was one of them.
“I pledge to do everything I can to continue that promise of freedom for African-Americans and for every American,”\u00a0he said then<\/a>.
The museum not only highlights tragic events, but the joys and culture of the African American experience,<\/strong> Lonnie Bunch, the museum’s founding director and now Secretary of the overall Smithsonian Institution, has said.
Over the years, Bunch, had led the effort to collect tens of thousands of artifacts<\/a>. In addition to featuring the history of slavery, Reconstruction and Civil Rights, the permanent collection includes an exhibit of African American music from the arrival of the first Africans to hip-hop and one on the contributions of Black athletes both “on and off the field.”
\u201cI\u2019m proudest of the fact that we were able to go from no collections to 40,000 amazing artifacts\u00a0that can tell the story of America through an African-American lens,\u201d Bunch told USA TODAY in a 2016 interview<\/a> months before the museum opened to much fanfare.
At the grand opening that September,<\/a> former Republican President George W. Bush, who had signed the bill\u00a0authorizing federal funding for\u00a0the museum, and Barack Obama, a Democrat and then the nation\u2019s first Black president, delivered passionate speeches supporting the museum.
The museum houses other original items, including a slave cabin and the shawl of abolitionist Harriet Tubman. There are also oral histories featuring interviews with veterans of the Civil Rights Movement.
Sanchez said it\u2019s even more important now to take students on trips to museums like it.
\u201cThere is a vigorous effort to erase this history and to ensure that it is not taught in our schools,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cSo it\u2019s even more important to be able to show these artifacts and to be able to actually go see that this is real.”<\/p>\n

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WASHINGTON \u2012 Adam Sanchez\u00a0 remembers tears streaming down a student\u2019s face as his high school class left the lower level of the\u00a0National African American Museum of History and Culture\u00a0a few of years ago.\u201cEveryone understood why he had tears in his eyes,” said Sanchez, a former high school history teacher.Sanchez gathered his students there on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":133549,"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-133548","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\/133548","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=133548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}