Black History Month in Trump's America

In 1976, the bicentennial year celebrating the birth of our nation with the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Republican President Gerald Ford became the first president to recognize February as Black History Month. In a short presidential message, Ford recognized the centrality of American “freedom and the recognition of individual rights” and acknowledged that “it took many years before these ideals became a reality for Black citizens.”

Ten years later, in 1986, during Republican President Ronald Reagan’s second term, Congress passed laws recognizing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a national holiday and designating February as National Black History Month. On Feb. 24, Reagan issued a presidential proclamation that clearly emphasized the struggle for Black civil rights as central to the holiday and to our “national consciousness”:

Black history in the United States has been a proving ground for America’s ideals. A great test of these ideals came with the Civil War and the elimination of slavery. Another test came a century later, in the struggle for practical recognition of the rights already won in principle — the abolition of legalized segregation and second-class citizenship.

The foremost purpose of Black History Month is to make all Americans aware of this struggle for freedom and equal opportunity. It is also a time to celebrate the many achievements of Blacks in every field, from science and the arts to politics and religion. It not only offers Black Americans an occasion to explore their heritage, but it also offers all Americans an occasion and opportunity to gain a fuller perspective of the contributions of Black Americans to our nation. The American experience and character can never be fully grasped until the knowledge of Black history assumes its rightful place in our schools and our scholarship.

President Ronald Reagan, saying America is still not free of the racism battled by Martin Luther King Jr., asked the nation’s youth on Thursday, Jan. 15, 1987, to strive for a land “free of bigotry, intolerance and discrimination.” The president, in a television speech beamed by cable and satellite to high school students across the country, said King was an inspiration to all Americans, no matter what their race. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)

In his final year of office, our last Republican president, George W. Bush, also issued a presidential proclamation celebrating Black History Month, with a strong emphasis on African Americans’ struggle for freedom and equal rights:

The theme of this year’s National African American History Month, “From Slavery to Freedom: Africans in the Americas,” recalls African Americans’ long journey to justice and commemorates the courage and persistence of the heroes who called on our nation to live up to its founding promise. A century after African American soldiers fought for their freedom on the battlefields of the Civil War, African Americans struggled peacefully for their rights in the streets of Birmingham, Ala., and on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Courageous civil rights leaders answered hate and discrimination with love and dignity, toppled segregation laws, and worked to make America a more just and hopeful nation.

On June 30, 2006, President George W. Bush, right, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, center, stand with civil rights leader Benjamin Hooks as they visit the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assasinated. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Between Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when Donald Trump was inaugurated, and the end of his second week in office, Trump has been busy wildly and baselessly blaming everything from the LA wildfires to a tragic airline crash in D.C. on Black, brown, LGBTQ and disabled people whom he conveniently lumps together as “DEI” hires. This week, the Defense Department, now under the new direction of white Christian nationalist Pete Hegseth, declared “identity months dead” and announced there would be no observance of Black History Month.

But on Friday, Jan. 31, Trump took time out from being the “racist in chief” to issue his own proclamation recognizing February as Black History Month. Here is the body of Trump’s statement in full:

Today, I am very honored to recognize February 2025 as National Black History Month.

Every year, National Black History Month is an occasion to celebrate the contributions of so many Black American patriots who have indelibly shaped our nation’s history.

Throughout our history, Black Americans have been among our country’s most consequential leaders, shaping the cultural and political destiny of our nation in profound ways. American heroes such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Thomas Sowell, Justice Clarence Thomas, and countless others represent what is best in America and her citizens. Their achievements, which have monumentally advanced the tradition of equality under the law in our great country, continue to serve as an inspiration for all Americans. We will also never forget the achievements of American greats like Tiger Woods, who have pushed the boundaries of excellence in their respective fields, paving the way for others to follow.

This National Black History Month, as America prepares to enter a historic Golden Age, I want to extend my tremendous gratitude to Black Americans for all they have done to bring us to this moment, and for the many future contributions they will make as we advance into a future of limitless possibility under my administration.

Donald Trump greets U.S. Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (R) and his wife Virginia Thomas along with Pete Hegseth, then Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense during the luncheon following inauguration at the U.S. Capitol on January 20. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Placed in context with previous Republican presidents, Trump’s language shows just how far the Republican Party has fallen in its commitment to giving even lip service to the importance of the Black Civil Rights Movement. Trump mentions Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, but he describes them as “American patriots” and “American heroes” who “monumentally advanced the tradition of equality under the law in our great country.”

In Trump’s counterfactual reading of history, an immutable and unblemished America triumphantly claims Douglass and Tubman as its own property, to be deployed for its own purposes. America is not, emphatically not, to be understood to be what the historical record testifies it is: a nation that has struggled mightily between twin commitments to democratic ideals and white supremacy. Rather, America always has been great from its founding, and concepts like “equality under the law” have simply always existed, tools waiting to be used rather than principles that had to be painstakingly chiseled free from their white supremacist bedrock.

“No other president, Republican or Democrat, has ever used a Black History Month proclamation for such crass self-promotion.”

It is also no accident that the only African Americans Trump mentions who lived in the last century are conservative scholar and author Thomas Sowell (a regular on Rush Limbaugh’s talk radio empire), Justice Clarence Thomas and golfer Tiger Woods. Gone are any acknowledgments or hints of America’s more recent failures, of Jim Crow segregation and racism, forces that were tearing the country apart two thirds through the 20th century and the legacies of which are still killing and disproportionately incarcerating Black citizens today.

Excised from the proclamation is any mention, which Trump included in his 2020 proclamation, of the “incredible prejudice and hardship” that African Americans have faced. And missing are any names, including those mentioned by other Republic presidents, such as Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks or Carter G. Woodson, each of whom called America to reckon honestly with its history and to repent of its ongoing racism during the mid-twentieth century civil rights movement.

Finally, as with all things Trump, this statement is ultimately a proclamation of Trump’s own self-declared greatness, with its references to America that will “advance into a future of limitless possibility under my administration” and enter “a historic Golden Age.” No other president, Republican or Democrat, has ever used a Black History Month proclamation for such crass self-promotion.

Trump’s America, innocent of any sins, is MAGA propaganda that makes a mockery of Black History Month. It is a description of the country Douglass and Tubman would have recognized not as a reality, but as the lie that had to die in order for an inclusive pluralistic democracy to be born. Many African Americans laid down their lives to help America recover from this delusional innocence, which they knew was a precondition to moving toward sanity and moral integrity. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge this history, even and especially in Black History Month, is testimony to how far we still have to go.