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#CivilRights advocates, #historians & #Black political leaders sharply rebuked #Trump on Friday for his order, entitled “Restoring Truth & Sanity to American History.” They argued that his #ExecutiveOrder targeting the #Smithsonian Institution is his admin’s latest move to downplay how #race, #racism & #BlackAmericans themselves have shaped the nation’s story.

“It seems like we’re headed in the direction where there’s even an attempt to deny that the institution of #slavery even existed, or that #JimCrow laws & #segregation & #RacialViolence against Black communities, Black families, Black individuals even occurred,” said historian Clarissa Myrick-Harris, a professor at Morehouse College, the historically Black campus in Atlanta.

#Trump’s #ExecutiveOrder cites the Natl Museum of #AfricanAmericanHistory & #Culture by name & argues that the #Smithsonian as a whole is engaging in a “concerted & widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history.”

Instead of celebrating an “unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, & human happiness,”the order states that a “corrosive…divisive, race-centered ideology”has “reconstructed”the nation “as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”

It empowers #JDVance to review all properties, programs & presentations to prohibit programs that “degrade shared American values” or “divide Americans based on race.”

#Trump also ordered Interior Secy #DougBurgum to determine if any monuments since Jan 2020 “have been removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history” or “inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures.”