Historians rip Trump attacks on the 'Black Smithsonian'

Civil rights advocates, historians and Black political leaders are sharply rebuking President Donald Trump for his order targeting the Smithsonian Institution. They argued that his executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution is his administration’s latest move to downplay how race, racism and Black Americans themselves have shaped the nation’s story. The Thursday executive order points to the National Museum of African American History and Culture by name and argues that the Smithsonian as a whole is engaging in a “concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history.” The order argues that a “corrosive … divisive, race-centered ideology” has “reconstructed” the nation “as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”