By Karsonya Smart Whitehead
For 110 years, ASALH has labored to create and share data about Black Historical past. We based Black Historical past Month, and we have now at all times acted as a bridge between students and the broader world. Because the president of ASALH, I perceive that we’re additionally tasked with the job of creating positive that our historical past is preserved, protected and promoted and when that is being threatened or when it’s susceptible to distortion or erasure, then our job is to sound the alarm.
Earlier this week, the president, on his social media platform, wrote a put up brazenly attacking the Smithsonian Establishment museums, asserting they had been “OUT OF CONTROL.” He wrongly claimed that they solely centered on “how horrible our Nation is, how unhealthy Slavery was and the way unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.” He additionally famous that “I’ve instructed my attorneys to undergo the Museums, and begin the very same course of that has been carried out with Faculties and Universities, the place large progress has been made. This nation can’t be WOKE, as a result of WOKE IS BROKE.” As a follow-up, the White Home launched a directive calling for a full overview of all archival supplies to find out if stated supplies are aligned with the president’s plan to “Restore Reality and Sanity to American Historical past” (Govt Order 14235). This plan goals to take away any exhibit or artifact that doesn’t align along with his definition of American exceptionalism.
“This regime is actively searching for to erase the lived experiences of Black individuals.”
When the chief order was first launched, ASALH felt compelled to talk out and partnered with different civil rights organizations, together with the African American Coverage Discussion board (AAPF), to guide the Nationwide Week of Motion’s “Fingers Off Our Historical past” rally. We met in Washington, D.C., and rallied across the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition (our beloved Blacksonian) to name consideration to what was taking place and what individuals wanted to do subsequent. We additionally laid out our North Star, offering our members with a blueprint for every day acts of resistance as a result of we knew, like Toni Morrison as soon as advised us, “The transfer towards a ultimate answer will not be a bounce. It takes one step, then one other, then one other.”
As you might remember, the primary steps have already been taken. The primary occurred in 2017 with the whitelash election; then in 2020 with the rise in anti-Blackness and White supremacy after the homicide of George Floyd. The best wing conservatives took a 3rd step in 2023 with the banning of over 10,000 books, a majority of which featured individuals and characters of colour. And, a fourth step occurred earlier this yr when 47 issued a number of government orders banning variety, fairness and inclusion (DEI) in larger training, medication, Okay-Twelfth grade historical past programs, analysis and science—to call just some steps within the race towards fascism. The president and MAGA at the moment are in full stride as they pace to defund libraries, whitewash historical past curricula, zero-base the Division of Schooling, place the Nationwide Guard in Washington, D.C., and dismantle the Black center class. (It isn’t misplaced on us that the work that was carried out to push and take away 300,000 Black ladies from the workforce was deliberate and intentional. Additionally it is one other step.)
These steps are veiled makes an attempt to rewrite and warp the narrative by eradicating any point out of the racist actions, phrases and deeds which have formed American historical past. This regime is actively searching for to erase the lived experiences of Black individuals.
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However, we knew that this second would come. Now we have been making ready, and we’re prepared. Our work to uphold the legacies of Dr. Carter G. Woodson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Ella Baker, Constance Baker Motley, Derrick Bell, Harriet Tubman, Paul Robeson, Dorothy I. Top, Juanita Jackson Mitchell, Vincent Harding and Barbara Jordan, amongst many others, demand that we keep prepared. Our work as reality seekers obliges us to “communicate the reality to the individuals” and calls for that we keep prepared. Our work to protect the historical past of our expertise and plant the seeds for future data and resistance to sprout calls for that we keep prepared.
ASALH stands in fierce opposition to this newest directive and all efforts to erase or distort our historical past, to silence our voices and to reduce our story. The historical past of the US is written in blood and tears, in cross burnings and lynchings, in protesting and picketing, in voting and in protesting, in worry and in terror, and in combating for justice and for peace. Our historical past is each brutal and ugly and poignant and delightful—from the compelled arrival of our ancestors to those shores to the Black males who fought and died in the course of the Revolutionary Conflict; from the 2 deliberate destructions of Fort Mose, the Seminole Wars, the Path of Tears, American enslavement, the Civil Conflict to the vicious violent overthrow of Reconstruction; from the terrorism of lynching and racial pogroms to the work that was carried out within the streets, within the courts and thru the Govt Department; from Elizabeth Key’s 1656 case, Plessey v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Truthful Housing Act of 1968; from the Civil Rights Motion and the battle for Black Energy to the work that was carried out throughout Black Lives Matter to reform neighborhood policing; and, via the work to cease the home terrorism of the KKK, racialized mass shooters, and now ICE. These are just some snapshot moments from our collective tales, and these tales matter. Our shared histories matter. Our voices and our sacrifices matter.
As ASALH continues to arrange for our Annual Convention in Atlanta (Sept. 24-28, 2025), we need to make the most of each accessible alternative to arrange and put together ourselves to counter his subsequent steps. We should bear in mind this isn’t the top of our battle, neither is it the start. It’s merely a continuation of the work we have now been doing as a corporation since 1915 and as a individuals since we first arrived right here. Our work, just like the wrestle, continues.
The opinions expressed on this commentary are these of the author and never essentially these of the AFRO.
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