Black History & Historical Memory

President Donald Trump used his 2026 Black History Month proclamation to unveil a roster of Black figures he says will be honored in his planned National Garden of American Heroes, while attacking 'progressive' politicians and diversity initiatives he claims distort U.S. history. The proclamation names Booker T. Washington, Jackie Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Coretta Scott King, Muhammad Ali, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Jesse Owens, Phillis Wheatley, NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, economist Thomas Sowell, Revolutionary War soldier Prince Estabrook and minister Lemuel Haynes among those to be commemorated as 'black patriots.' Trump framed the park as part of his effort to 'restore the Nation that these titans helped build' and called on 'public officials, educators, librarians' to mark Black History Month with programs and ceremonies, even as his administration has moved to dismantle DEI programs, pressure museums and historic sites to strip 'divisive' content, and gut civil-rights enforcement. Civil-rights leaders like Martin Luther King III have warned that these parallel moves amount to a coordinated attempt to erase or rewrite Black history, and point to federal attacks on DEI, book removals and the defunding of exhibits on slavery and the civil-rights movement as examples. The announcement highlights a central contradiction of Trump’s second-term posture: publicly elevating selected Black icons in stone while simultaneously narrowing which stories and structural critiques about race can be taught or funded in schools, agencies, and public institutions.