Trump's Wishes Aside, Censoring Racial History May Prove Difficult

WASHINGTON -- Late last month, when two federal grants to the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana were rescinded, the Trump administration seemed to be following through on its promise to root out what President Donald Trump called "improper ideology" in cultural institutions focused on Black history.

After all, the plantation's mission was to show visitors what life was truly like for the enslaved, contrary to the watered-down Black history that the president seemed to back.

Then just as quickly, the grants were restored a few weeks later, the Whitney Plantation's executive director, Ashley Rogers, said in an interview.

Because the money had already been approved, "maybe it was an exposure for lawsuits," Rogers said, "but who knows?"

Ever since Trump issued an executive order in March denouncing cultural institutions that were trying to "rewrite our Nation's history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth," sites like the Whitney Plantation have lived with such uncertainty. An order specifically targeting the Smithsonian Institution tasked Vice President JD Vance and other White House officials with "seeking to remove improper ideology from such properties."

But reversals like the one in Louisiana and actions by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture seem to indicate some misgivings about the president's order. They also show that putting historical knowledge back into the bottle after decades of reckoning with the nation's racist history will be more difficult than the administration believes.

"The most concerning phrase that I've seen is 'improper ideology,' which sounds so Orwellian," Rogers said. She added, "They're couching everything as ideology, which is already odd, because what we're talking about at Whitney Plantation is facts."

The distortions, she said, come from "plantation museums where they do not talk about slavery, where they try to peddle you this idea that enslaved people were happy."

When news stories claimed last week that the Smithsonian's African American history museum had begun returning artifacts to comply with the president's order, the Smithsonian issued a statement saying it would do no such thing.

No object had been "removed for reasons other than adherence to standard loan agreements or museum practices," the institution said.

Two objects returned to the Rev. Amos C. Brown -- an edition of "The History of the Negro Race in America," one of the first books to document African American history, the other a Bible that Brown carried during civil rights protests -- were appended with an apology from the Smithsonian for any "misunderstanding" about the museum's motives. Brown said in an interview Monday that he had a cordial video conference with African American history museum staff Friday, in which they discussed making his artifacts a permanent part of the museum, pending review of a panel.

"Nothing has been resolved," he said.

White House aides declined to comment when asked for a progress report on the campaign against "improper ideology."

At Frederick Douglass' stately historic home in Washington last week, Larry Burton, a 77-year-old visitor, said that when he grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, much of Black history had been hidden from him. The visit to the famed abolitionist's house ignited both curiosity and determination to encourage others to learn.

"The rest of the time that I have I'm going to make sure that my grandchildren know their history," he said.

That task may become more complicated if the Trump administration actually succeeds in warping historical narratives around race. The White House executive order argued that the country's cultural institutions are trying to "rewrite our Nation's history."

The same order specifically targeted the Smithsonian Institution, claiming that it had "come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology," with "narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive."

Then on Friday, the president's budget singled out the government's 400 Years of African American History Commission for elimination, "to enhance accountability, reduce waste, and reduce unnecessary governmental entities."

But almost five years after the murder of George Floyd opened the door for a more public and thorough examination of the nation's past, Trump may not be able to fully slam it shut. Historical sites dedicated to Black history, and the visitors still thronging them will have their say.

"I can't understand why he's doing that, trying to remove certain things that happened in history," Burton said. He compared the administration's attempts unfavorably with the paltry Black history education he received as a child and its effect. "It had us thinking that we were unimportant, we were insignificant," he said. "But we have a rich history."

No doubt, the threat still remains, especially as the White House and Congress scour the federal budget for spending cuts. The president's budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins in October would eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, the primary source of support for many Black history sites.

"Without additional support, what we're likely to see is museums making significant programmatic cuts, a reduction in staff, increased deferred maintenance, reducing the number of days or hours that they're open to the public, and, possibly, temporary and permanent closures," the American Alliance of Museums said in a statement. "At the end of the day, American communities that benefit from their local museums will suffer the greatest losses."

Some Black conservatives agree with the president's approach.

"This constant stirring of the racial pot and racializing everything has been detrimental to our society," Carol M. Swain, a political scientist and vice chair of Trump's 1776 Commission, said in an interview.

To Swain, 71, the very existence of the Smithsonian's Black history museum is "problematic," since it segregates history instead of blending the Black experience with the American story. The president's executive order, she said, is doing the nation a public service by going after "taxpayer-funded anti-Americanism."

Still, the sheer number of Black history sites with ties to the federal government will make change difficult. The National Park Service alone lists more than 400 parks, historic sites, seashores and trails in their index of civil rights sites. Funders include the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

All are under severe strain from Elon Musk's cost cutters at the Department of Government Efficiency. But patrons have faith the pressure can get the administration only so far.

"I don't think they will hinder or stop anything, because we have insight now," said Dortha Burton, Larry Burton's wife. "We have knowledge now."

The rebuff is coming from historians and curators as well.

Museums that focus on Black history "are being targeted because they tell inclusive histories of the more full, expansive American story," said Hilary Green, author of the book, "Unforgettable Sacrifice: How Black Communities Remembered the Civil War."

How Americans remember the past shapes the meaning of the present, she said, and getting it wrong has consequences. For instance, the "Lost Cause" mythology that the Civil War had little or nothing to do with slavery was used for generations to diminish the war's meaning for Black liberation and the impact of slavery on American culture, economics and caste.

Rogers of the Whitney Plantation expressed understanding that the painful parts of U.S. history can make some fear being seen as "bad." There is still a deep-seeded reluctance to acknowledge the ongoing effects of slavery on American society, she said.

But she said, "a wound doesn't get better if you ignore it. It just festers."

After the release of the 1977 record-smashing television miniseries "Roots," many African Americans were inspired to seek out their family histories, demanding access to records that were previously unavailable or ignored. Institutions such as libraries and archives changed the way they collected and preserved historical materials, according to Green.

Many Black communities were also stewards of their own stories, maintaining archives, passing down stories through generations, and creating local museums and historical societies to ensure their narratives and contributions were remembered and documented.

The movement culminated in the National Museum of African American History and Culture, a part of the Smithsonian Institution affectionately known as the "Blacksonian."

Quentin Peacock, 47, had brought his family up from North Carolina to visit the museum on a recent day in April. His mind, he said, was brimming with new facts that he learned on his tour, including the friendship between Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. He was also heartened that the visitors that day were so racially diverse, underscoring his belief that telling the truth about American history is not inherently "divisive."

"It's an African American history museum, but there's white history in there, too," Peacock, a Black father, said. People of all races have connections to the history presented, he added, and any attempts to interrupt or challenge its operations would be "hurtful to all cultures, not just ours."

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.