Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Trump Says Smithsonian Focuses Too Much on "How Bad Slavery Was".
I visited the African American History Museum in D.C. last weekend, and it’s brilliant.
The museum is a magnificent feat of both design and content. Of course it doesn’t whitewash our history, nor should it. But neither does it ignore the heroism of those who have led us away from the evils of race-based cruelties over the last four hundred years.
Funding for the museum’s creation was signed into law by George W. Bush in 2003, as he praised America for “not hiding its history.” Barack Obama shed tears as he spoke at its opening in 2016, ruminating on the day when he would bring his own grandchildren there. That’s how our Presidents are supposed to behave….with dignity and respect toward the triumphs and tragedies of American history.
As with so many things, however, Donald Trump has decided to forge his own way. He is less interested in the flowering of American cultural institutions than he is in controlling them. In March he issued an Executive Order No. 14253 to eliminate what he calls “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” from the Smithsonian and its museums. That might sound innocent enough, but it is not. From now on, every exhibit item at 19 national museums will be under the oversight of a political team led by J.D. Vance, there to make sure that every exhibit expresses the “unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story.” Each museum was given thirty days to present its labeling and digital content for review, to be vetted by people who know nothing about museum curation but everything about a particular vision of America’s past, present, and future now deemed a “correct” one by the President.
An attack on historical museums is an attack on the truth, an attack on culture, an attack on freedom, and an attack on us. The reason Donald Trump wants oversight over our historical museums is not because they fail to celebrate the American spirit, but because they do. America at times has displayed the best as well as the worst of what humanity has to offer, yet throughout our history it has been people’s dedication to the possibilities of freedom that have ultimately had the last word. Nothing today could be a more important lesson for us to teach, or to learn, than this.
More from Marianne at:
substack.com/@mariannewilliamson
Trump Says Smithsonian Focuses Too Much on "How Bad Slavery Was".
I visited the African American History Museum in D.C. last weekend, and it’s brilliant.
The museum is a magnificent feat of both design and content. Of course it doesn’t whitewash our history, nor should it. But neither does it ignore the heroism of those who have led us away from the evils of race-based cruelties over the last four hundred years.
Funding for the museum’s creation was signed into law by George W. Bush in 2003, as he praised America for “not hiding its history.” Barack Obama shed tears as he spoke at its opening in 2016, ruminating on the day when he would bring his own grandchildren there. That’s how our Presidents are supposed to behave….with dignity and respect toward the triumphs and tragedies of American history.
As with so many things, however, Donald Trump has decided to forge his own way. He is less interested in the flowering of American cultural institutions than he is in controlling them. In March he issued an Executive Order No. 14253 to eliminate what he calls “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” from the Smithsonian and its museums. That might sound innocent enough, but it is not. From now on, every exhibit item at 19 national museums will be under the oversight of a political team led by J.D. Vance, there to make sure that every exhibit expresses the “unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story.” Each museum was given thirty days to present its labeling and digital content for review, to be vetted by people who know nothing about museum curation but everything about a particular vision of America’s past, present, and future now deemed a “correct” one by the President.
An attack on historical museums is an attack on the truth, an attack on culture, an attack on freedom, and an attack on us. The reason Donald Trump wants oversight over our historical museums is not because they fail to celebrate the American spirit, but because they do. America at times has displayed the best as well as the worst of what humanity has to offer, yet throughout our history it has been people’s dedication to the possibilities of freedom that have ultimately had the last word. Nothing today could be a more important lesson for us to teach, or to learn, than this.
More from Marianne at:
substack.com/@mariannewilliamson
