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HOW TRUMP TREATS BLACK HISTORY DIFFERENTLY THAN OTHER PARTS OF
AMERICA’S PAST  
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Erica L. Green
June 20, 2025
The New York Times
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_ Since taking office in January, President Trump has tried to
reframe the country’s past involving racism and discrimination by
de-emphasizing that history or at times denying that it happened. _

Cora Masters Barry, a former first lady of the District of Columbia,
and Melanie L. Campbell, chairwoman of the Power of the Ballot Action
Fund, join hands in prayer outside the National Museum of African
American History and Culture last month., Maansi Srivastava for The
New York Times

 

On the occasion of Juneteenth, a day that commemorates the end of
slavery, President Trump took a moment to complain that the national
holiday even exists.

“Too many non-working holidays in America,” Mr. Trump wrote on
social media, just hours after his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt,
made a point of noting that White House staff had shown up to work.

The president’s decision to snub Juneteenth
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a day that has been cherished by generations of Black Americans before
it was named a federal holiday in 2021 — is part of a pattern of
words and actions by Mr. Trump that minimize, ignore or even erase
some of the experiences and history of Black people in the United
States. Since taking office in January, he has tried to reframe the
country’s past involving racism and discrimination by de-emphasizing
that history or at times denying that it happened.

Government websites have been scrubbed of hundreds of words
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including “injustice” and “oppression.” Federal agencies
eliminated or obscured the contributions of Black heroes
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from the Tuskegee Airmen who fought
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the military, to Harriet Tubman
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who guided enslaved people along the Underground Railroad.
School libraries were purged
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writings by pre-eminent Black authors like Maya Angelou. Mr. Trump has
assailed the Smithsonian Institution
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what he characterized as “divisive, race-centered ideology” in its
exhibits on race. He ordered the renaming of monuments
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honor Confederate soldiers who fought to preserve slavery.

Members of the Tuskegee Airmen at a 2016 recognition ceremony in
Albany, N.Y.: from left, Audley Coulthurst, William Johnson, Wilfred
R. DeFour and Herbert C. Thorpe. Hans Pennink/Associated Press

And on Thursday, instead of marking the day when the last enslaved
people were informed of their freedom from forced labor, Mr. Trump
lamented that Americans had a day off from work and suggested that the
holiday was little more than a drain on the economy
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Taken together, Mr. Trump’s actions are part of a larger cultural
and political battle, in which diversity has become an all-purpose
target
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society’s ills.

“Trump’s behavior around Juneteenth isn’t isolated at all — it
speaks to how he views our community, and everyone who doesn’t look
like him or isn’t as wealthy as he is,” said Derrick Johnson, the
president of the N.A.A.C.P. “It’s why he’s stripping away our
rights, erasing our history and silencing our voices.”

The White House has defended its actions as part of an effort to put
merit ahead of diversity, and to focus less on divisions among
Americans. On Inauguration Day, Mr. Trump promised to usher in a
“colorblind” society.

“The Black community is more interested in results than in
performative messages that do more to check a box than anything
else,” Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said in a
statement. Black Americans, he said, “lined up to support President
Trump in historic fashion because of policies that transcend race and
align with common sense.”

But to critics, Mr. Trump’s decision to brush off Juneteenth smacks
of hypocrisy.

He signed Juneteenth proclamations in his first presidential term
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And in 2020, while he was campaigning for re-election, Mr. Trump
agreed to reschedule a campaign rally that he was supposed to hold on
Juneteenth because it was perceived as insensitive.

The rally was in Tulsa, Okla., the city where in 1921 white people
carried out a racist massacre in an area known as Black Wall Street.
Later, he tried to claim credit for drawing attention to the holiday,
saying he “made Juneteenth very famous
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But on Thursday, in a year with no votes on the line, he did not even
say the name of the holiday.

The decision not to issue a proclamation honoring Juneteenth was made
by a senior Trump administration official, according to a person
familiar with the internal deliberations, who spoke on the condition
of anonymity. The person said the president and his senior staff were
too preoccupied with the escalating conflict in Iran to mark the
holiday.

Mr. Trump also spent Thursday posting on his social media account,
including an executive order that extended the use of TikTok, another
attack on Jerome H. Powell
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the Fed chair, and his approval of emergency for storm-ravaged states.
He also reposted other accounts that boasted about his economy numbers
and blamed former President Barack Obama for the Iran conflict.

By the end of the night, he had posted two videos of his entrance to
an Ultimate Fighting Championship bout, and praise for a court
decision in his favor.

A march in Washington, D.C., last month in support of protecting Black
history.Credit...Maansi Srivastava for The New York Times

In the past week alone, he’d issued proclamations
commemorating Father’s Day, Flag Day and National Flag Week, and
the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill
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are among the 11 annual federal holidays
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Since Mr. Trump came back to office, historians and civil rights
leaders have noticed an attempt to sanitize the country’s history of
racism.

Chad Williams, a historian and professor of African American and Black
diaspora studies at Boston University, said Mr. Trump’s actions,
taken as a whole, showed that the administration was seeking to craft
a “propaganda version of history.”

“They’re trying to erase the history of Black struggle and Black
resistance by denying the realities of racism and white supremacy,”
Mr. Williams said. “They’re crafting a history that romanticizes
the past at the expense of a true telling of the complexities and
nuances of the American experience.”

President Joseph R. Biden Jr. signed the commemoration of Juneteenth
into law in 2021, after the nationwide protests that followed the
police killings of Black Americans including George Floyd
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Taylor [[link removed]].
The holiday recognizes the day when a Union general arrived in
Galveston, Texas, nearly two and a half years after President Lincoln
signed the Emancipation Proclamation, to inform enslaved African
Americans there that the Civil War had ended.

Mr. Trump has been vocal about what parts of the nation’s history he
believes deserves recognition.

Since taking office, he has declared new, unpaid (and unrecognized
because they have not been certified by Congress) federal holidays
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Mr. Trump also announced that he would be “reinstating” Columbus
Day
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even though it was never canceled as a federal holiday.

He also established “Gulf of America Day,”
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recognize his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, on Feb. 9; “Victory
Day for World War II,” on May 8; and renaming Veterans Day, on Nov.
11, as “Victory Day for World War I.” Mr. Trump said in his
announcement
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he would not be closing down the country to observe the days.

An exhibit on the Black Power movement at the National Museum of
African American History and Culture.Credit...Maansi Srivastava for
The New York Times

Mr. Fields, the White House spokesman, said the president was focused
on improving the lives of Black Americans rather than virtue
signaling.

“We did Juneteenth, we did the D.E.I. thing, we had the diverse
cabinet, and what did that do for us? Absolutely, nothing,” Mr.
Fields said. “Inflation tore through households. More Black people
were on food stamps. Education never prospered.”

Bruce LeVell, a former adviser to Mr. Trump who led his diversity
coalition for his 2016 campaign, said Mr. Trump’s support among
Black voters demonstrated that they were not looking to him for
validation of their history, but rather to improve their futures.

“We vote for the wallet,” he said. “The emotions come when
we’re trying to pick our next pastor for our church.”

Mr. LeVell, a business owner from Ft. Hood, Texas, whose family has
been celebrating Juneteenth for decades, said that he and other Black
Americans were more concerned with things that Mr. Trump could change,
like the economy and immigration.

 

“That particular historic day when they liberated the slaves in
Texas, nothing will ever erase that, it’s there for eternity,” he
said. “Whether you like it or dislike it, or celebrate or don’t,
it’s still part of what happened and nothing takes that away.”

But Melanie L. Campbell, chairwoman of the Power of the Ballot Action
Fund, an advocacy group focused on policies for Black Americans, said
that larger issues were at play.

“He’s clear that he wants a white America,” Ms. Campbell said of
Mr. Trump, “and what white America looks like for him does not
include anybody of color.”

Aishvarya Kavi contributed reporting.

_ERICA L. GREEN [[link removed]] is a White
House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his
administration._

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* Donald Trump
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* Black History
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* Juneteenth
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* Inequality
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* Racism
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