President Trump signed an executive order aimed at what he calls restoring truth and sanity to American history. He’s ordering the Smithsonian to promote American greatness and threatens funding for any of the museums that have anti-American exhibits.
Trump calls it restoring truth and sanity to American history. But that’s a lie. Trump is attempting to erase history, Black history, American history, in order to sanitize the truth and perpetuate white supremacy in the face of Trump erasing Black history. It feels important to go to the National Museum of African American History and Culture to preserve the truth in defiance of Trump’s sanitation.
While walking through the museum. You’re immediately confronted with our complicated past, the harsh truth that we were brought here on slave ships, that our founding fathers were slave owners, that some white Americans banded together and used violence to suppress us and our right to vote. That the great Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated for speaking truth to power.
This history of Black Americans is harsh but important, and we cannot erase this.
Somehow, in spite of the obstacles. Black culture has thrived. Taking a walk around the museum, you’re reminded of the accomplishments of creating historically Black colleges and universities in the face of slavery and segregation. A thriving as farmers when the debt was stacked against them. A fighting back against prejudice.
Time and time again.
Of standing strong and practicing radical joy. Despite these trials, and while the struggle continues, so does our joy.
I want to end with a quote from the great doctor Bernice King, daughter of the late civil rights leader, Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.:
“Evil is always going to be present. It’s always going to operate through different vessels in every season, in every generation. And that’s why my mother was so brilliant when she said struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation.”
