The image above will be removed from the National Gallery of Art to comply with Trump’s executive order on “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The picture shows the striking image of Peter Gordon, who escaped slavery and remained scarred from whipping. It was taken in 1863 at the height of the Civil War.
The President’s executive order directed Vice President Vance, the Interior Department, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to purge national monuments and historic sites, including Smithsonian institutions, of “improper ideology,” including historical and artistic installations about race and gender.
Smithsonian museums currently under review include the Museum of African American History and Culture, the Museum of American History, the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of the American Indian, the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of American Art, the National Portrait Gallery and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Trump has also threatened funding for the National American Women’s History Museum, which is still in development and not open to the public. “The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE,'” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.”
The truth is, slavery was much worse than Trump may care to acknowledge. Slaves were literally viewed as livestock, as property; they were bred, beaten, raped, killed, and even skinned to make furniture and shoes.
Any effort by the Trump administration to eliminate uncomfortable truths about America’s racial history must be interrogated and condemned as an effort to permit (or at the very least, minimize the significance of) racism broadly.
The current Trump-led information purge is part of a centuries-long movement to erase facts about slavery from the public consciousness. Pursued first by slaveholders themselves, there have long been efforts to make the institution of slavery appear moral, or at the very least, not that bad.
This effort seeks to stop accountability, justice, and, perhaps most of all, empathy for the suffering of Black people.
Slavery was a real-life horror movie, and we must have the courage to bear witness to that dark part of American history to gain an accurate and whole understanding of the past and present and to build a better future.
As Trump has acknowledged, his museum crackdown has been coupled with punishments for colleges and universities with programs in gender studies and ethnic studies, including Africana studies and Black history.
“I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made,” the President added in his Truth Social post.
After Trump threatened $400 million in funding for Columbia University, the university agreed to a list of demands including federal supervision of their Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies departments. Trump has also placed over 50 universities under investigation as part of an effort to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs in admissions and student life.
And, amidst widespread efforts by the Trump administration to make K-12 education more conservative, the Education Department announced this week that it will partner with at least 40 conservative groups (and no neutral or left-leaning groups) to create “patriotic” programming for K-12 schools ahead of the United States’ 250th anniversary.
With these overt attacks on education and information, it is easy to become despondent. Yet, this week, I found hope in the freedom that remains. I found hope as I wrote and researched this very article—remembering that our institutions are weakened and people are suffering, but freedom of speech and academic inquiry have not died.
Amidst these attacks, freedom of speech and academic inquiry endure. Museums like the Museum of African American History and Culture stand as testaments to truth, resilience, and resistance. Visiting, supporting, and defending these spaces is one way we ensure history is not erased, and that justice has the grounding it needs for the future.