By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on March 30, 2025
An Editorial Opinion
After only ten weeks in office, President Donald Trump’s blitzkrieg against the national policy of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has brought him to the front steps of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, D.C. Trump is not there to learn about the painful experience of Black Americans over the last 400 years -- from slavery to ongoing “cradle to the grave" racial discrimination, as acknowledged by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 8, 2023, in Allen v. Milligan.
No, Trump is there to suppress and erase African American history and culture in his effort to restore what he believes is the greatness of the white European colonists who slaughtered millions of Native Americans and enslaved millions of Africans in their quest to make America great.
To accomplish his wholesale suppression and erasure of African American history, Trump issued an Executive Order on March 27, 2025, titled, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The Order specifically targets the NMAAHC.
The intent and purpose of this Executive Order is stated as follows:
“Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light. Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed…..”.
The Order directs the Secretary of the Interior to:
“take action …. to ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times), and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape.”
What History is Trump Trying to Erase from Our National Memory?
When America was "founded" in the 1,600s by white European colonists in the pursuit of their "Manifest Destiny," slaves of African descent were deemed “chattel property” that could be bought and sold to third parties and/or willed to heirs upon the death of the slaveowner. They were insured as “property,” and could be used as collateral on bank loans. Millions of Africans were enslaved in America for over 250 years.
Trump does not want any of this African American history mentioned or displayed in the NMAAHC or any other museum on federal property or on property listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Like slaves of African descent, women in America had no rights that white men were bound to respect. From the time the first colony was founded in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 until the late 1870s, a woman's husband enjoyed the legal right to (a) beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb, (b) pull her hair, (c) choke her, (d) spit in her face, (d) kick her about the floor, and (e) inflict upon her like indignities. This inhumane treatment of women came to a fitting end through a series of landmark court cases around the nation.
Women did not get the right to vote until 1920. Furthermore, a husband’s legal right to rape his wife did not end until 1979.
Trump does not want America's historical treatment of women mentioned or displayed in the forthcoming Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum or any other museum on federal property or on property listed in the National Register.
The Declaration of Independence explicitly calls Native Americans “merciless Indian Savages.” Indian Tribes that stood their ground in the face of "Manifest Destiny" were slaughtered -- by the millions -- in horrific ways.
The Declaration of Independence also condemned King George’s refusal to return runaway Black slaves to their owners.
Of course, Trump moved the original Declaration of Independence into the Oval Office where he shows it off to friends and visitors.
None of the events Trump seeks to suppress and erase constitutes “reconstructed” history. These events are explicitly referenced in the nation’s founding documents and law books dating back to the 1600s.
According to Trump, the mere acknowledgment of this documented history “inappropriately disparage(s) Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times).”
Trump Has Faced No Meaningful Resistance from Today’s Black Leaders
The Trump blitzkrieg to erase Black history and culture has faced no meaningful resistance from Black mega-church preachers who fleece their congregations each Sunday for money to finance their heavenly lifestyle on Earth.
Likewise, Trump’s Blitzkrieg has faced no meaningful resistance from any state-supported HBCU president, even though many of these presidents have a battery of lawyers and hefty legal budget at their disposal to challenge Trump’s anti-DEI actions in court.
Additionally, Trump’s Blitzkrieg has faced no meaningful resistance from Black mayors and county commissioners around the nation, many of whom have fully staffed law departments and litigation budgets to fight Trump’s non-stop assault on DEI initiatives in their cities/counties.
Finally, Trump’s anti-DEI Blitzkrieg has faced no meaningful resistance from the Congressional Black Caucus. The issuance of occasional softball press statements by a couple of conscientious Caucus members means nothing to Trump.
The lack of any legal action by state-supported land-grant HBCU presidents to challenge Trump's DEI rollback Orders does not surprise me. Trump sees in them what I see -- pure cowardice, psychological castration, and impotence. For example, all 16 state-supported land-grant HBCU institutions received notices from the Biden administration’s Departments of Education and Agriculture on September 18, 2023, that they were owed $13 billion in equitable state funding. Not one of them took legal action to collect the money that was owed to his/her institution. It's too late to get this money now.
For the most part, the nation’s Black mayors and other local officials will not fight for their African American constituents because they do not want to offend the Trump-aligned anti-DEI corporations that finance their campaigns. Sadly, these public officials spend more time posting self-glorification photos and memes on social media than fighting Donald Trump on DEI rollbacks.
Trump Preserves Confederate Museums on the National Register
Amid his attack on the NMAAHC, Donald Trump has chosen to preserve and protect the First White House of the Confederacy in Montgomery, Alabama. This museum stands enshrined on the state Capitol grounds in Montgomery, Alabama. It is an enduring symbol of states rights, Confederate heritage, and Confederate flag-flying Old South glory.
This museum is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The National Register is the U.S. Department of Interior's official list of sites, buildings, structures, districts, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance.
As expected, Trump has taken no executive action to remove the First White House of the Confederacy from the National Register. Apparently, this museum does not "inappropriately disparage Americans past or living." Of course, Black slaves were deemed to be sub-human prior to and during the Confederate era. By law, they were "chattel property" and had no rights that white men were bound to respect.
I predict that Donald Trump will soon issue an Executive Order removing the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial from the National Mall in Washington. Dr. King is the only non-president with a Memorial on the National Mall.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump said then-North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was "Martin Luther King on steroids." Trump added, “I told that to Mark. I said, I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two."
Robinson lost his race for NC governor after Trump's endorsement and national news articles exposed his lusty and clandestine sexual behavior.
Black elected and appointed officials in federal, state, and local governments are surrendering their political constituents to Trumpism without ANY fight and at speeds that match the quickness in which most court-appointed attorneys plead their clients guilty in criminal cases. Where is the fight? What are they afraid of?
The opposite of “diversity” is segregation, by race and gender. The opposite of “equity” is inequity. The opposite of “inclusion” is exclusion. As a people, African Americans have been subjected to systemic racial segregation, inequity in every aspect of American life, and exclusion for 400 years. Trumpism does not remedy this segregation, inequity, and exclusion; it seeks to restore and perpetuate these societal conditions into the future.