Because the Trump administration’s agenda to make Black historical past invisible once more rages on, it’s left as much as the Black collective to select up the slack that government-sanctioned white nationalism is forsaking.
Final month, we reported that President Donald Trump’s newest bid to rewrite American historical past by omitting its overwhelming historical past of systemic racism and anti-Black oppression focused the Smithsonian Establishment and, particularly, the Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition (NMAAHC). The White Home has claimed the manager order Trump signed was aimed toward correcting a “concerted and widespread” effort over the previous decade to rewrite American historical past by changing “goal information” with a “distorted narrative pushed by ideology fairly than reality,” including that it casts the “founding rules” of the USA in a “unfavorable gentle.” Now, everyone knows that each factor Trump is aware of about American historical past, “goal information,” or the Founding Fathers’ “founding rules” can slot in a kind of “Cleland Notes” pamphlets the Cliff and Claire Huxtable warned their youngsters about (and that’s being beneficiant as a result of Theo would by no means), however that hasn’t stopped his administration from taking on or defunding any establishment of studying that allegedly teaches what he and his MAGA minions contemplate “improper ideology,” and forcing their very own ideology, which is just about indistinguishable from every part white nationalism has all the time been.
So, now, Black church leaders like Baltimore pastor Rev. Robert Turner are stepping in to guard and promote the NMAAHC in an effort to thwart Trump’s agenda to eradicate non-whitewashed Black historical past.
From the Related Press:
Turner knelt in prayer and laid a wreath on the entrance of the museum in assist of its mission, which incurred President Donald Trump’s criticism alongside different Smithsonian Establishment websites. In a March 27 government order, Trump alleged that Smithsonian displays had disparaged the nation’s historical past through a “divisive, race-centered ideology.”
Turner wished to indicate assist for the museum, which opened in 2016 and acquired its 10 millionth customer in 2023. The museum tells the historical past of chattel slavery, Jim Crow segregation and its lingering results, however it additionally highlights the willpower, successes and contributions of Black Individuals and Black establishments.
“I laid my wreath down there to indicate solidarity with the museum and the historical past that they current each day,” stated Turner, pastor of Empowerment Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore.
He stated his church has dedicated to turning into a museum member, and he’s inspired church members to do the identical. Membership prices begin at $25 per yr, in response to a web based type on the museum web site.
His church isn’t alone, as different predominantly Black congregations are taking comparable steps.
Turner stated he acquired the concept from the Rev. Otis Moss III of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, whose church additionally joined the museum and who urged members to do the identical. “For less than $25 a yr, you possibly can defend Black historical past,” Moss instructed his church.
Two different Black pastors instructed The Related Press additionally they supported the hassle.
One was the Rev. Jacqui J. Lewis, senior minister at Center Church in New York Metropolis — residence to a multiracial congregation affiliated with the United Church of Christ.
“We belonged to the museum since its opening, and we simply made one other donation to them in gentle of this administration’s insurance policies,” she instructed the AP. The present, she stated, was a $1,000 “Easter Love donation.”
Bishop Timothy Clarke of the First Church of God in Columbus, Ohio, stated he could be emulating Moss in making an enchantment to his predominantly African American congregation.
Since at the very least 2023, Black church buildings throughout the nation have been taking on the apply of educating their communities on Black historical past and social research with a view to fight the stifling of these tales by the hands of white and eternally fragile Republicans who prioritize jingoism and Caucasian consolation over reality and “goal information.” Earlier this month, we reported that Dr. Marvin Dunn, a former psychology professor at Florida Worldwide College, had begun instructing Black historical past below a tree on the college’s campus with out the college’s permission with a view to fight Trump’s agenda and the way it has bolstered Florida’s constant agenda to sanitize Black historical past for white consumption.
As all the time, it’s as much as Black individuals to guard our personal tales whereas they’re liable to being misplaced to white individuals’s effort to guard their very own emotions. It’s a tragic state of affairs, however the struggle presses on.
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