America stares down erasure of Black history and progress
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In the past year, federal, state and institutional decisions have gutted major pillars of America's civil rights protections and racial equity infrastructure, wiping away public data, slashing research funding and erasing Black history.
Why it matters: Taken together, these moves amount to an unprecedented rollback of civil rights progress, historians say — the largest since Reconstruction.
Zoom in: Effects are piling up.
- $3.4 billion in grants for HBCUs, public health research and Black entrepreneurs have been cut or frozen, according to the Blackout Report, from the nonprofit Onyx Impact.
- 6,769 federal datasets have been deleted, including those tracking maternal mortality and sickle cell disease, which disproportionately affect Black Americans, per the Blackout report. Also removed: data on workforce diversity and environmental exposure in historically redlined neighborhoods — information that directly informs racial equity policy.
- 591 books by Black authors have been banned from Pentagon-run schools and libraries, Onyx Impact notes. The removed titles include works by Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Ibram X. Kendi.
- The Trump administration is reviewing national museums, including the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture, after President Trump criticized the museums as being "out of control" and focusing on "how horrible our country is."
- Government websites have deleted content related to Black history. Some deleted material — including National Park Service pages about Harriet Tubman and Medgar Evers — was restored after public backlash, but researchers say most erasures remain uncorrected.
- The unemployment rate for Black women has risen sharply to 7.5%, according to the most recent government data. That's significantly higher than the overall unemployment rate, and is partly a result of Trump's cuts to the federal workforce, which have disproportionately hit Black women, Axios' Emily Peck reports. A backlash in the diversity, equity and inclusion space has also hit this group.
- Colleges across the country have shuttered cultural centers, including those that are geared toward Black students, The Washington Post reports.
"When datasets or historical materials disappear, it becomes harder to see, and fix, racial disparities," says Maya Wiley, who leads the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
- "We've seen rollbacks before, after Reconstruction, after the civil-rights movement. And every time, they were justified with new language and new fears. ... The terms change. The strategy doesn't."
A White House official told Axios that the administration is focused on "restoring the Gold Standard of Science — not ideological activism" and on removing "divisive DEI initiatives" to promote merit-based hiring.
- The administration pointed to earlier initiatives from Trump's first term — including permanent HBCU funding, Opportunity Zones and the First Step Act criminal justice reform legislation — as evidence of the administration's record on Black economic progress.
What we're watching: The cuts and deletions are, paradoxically, drawing more attention to Black history, says National Urban League president Marc H. Morial. "The attempt to erase history has made all of us more cognizant of the need to tell it," he said.
Go deeper: Trump rolls back DEI programs for federal workers
