Black America should be insulted and outraged. President Donald Trump is returning historic artifacts to their original owners and removing primary exhibits from the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Trump is dismantling America’s Black historical significance and cultural occurrences.
Many news stories reported that one of the first and major exhibits to be removed is the Greensboro Lunch Counter, which occurred in 1960 at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. This significant sit-in was initiated by four Black college students from North Carolina A&T who protested segregation.
However recent reports about the Smithsonian removing the historic Greensboro, North Carolina, lunch counter and a stool from the National Museum of American History and National Museum of African American History and Culture, respectively, are inaccurate.
Both the Greensboro lunch counter and stools where college students sat in protest during the Civil Rights Movement are and continue to be on display. A stool from the sit-ins remains on view at the National Museum of African American History and Culture as the centerpiece of an interactive exhibition. The larger section of the Greensboro counter also remains on display at the National Museum of American History. Suggestions that the Smithsonian had planned or intended to remove these items are false.
Further, the Smithsonian routinely returns loaned artifacts per applicable loan agreements and rotates objects on display in accordance with the Smithsonian’s high standards of care and preservation and as part of our regular museum turnover. Recent claims that objects have been removed for reasons other than adherence to standard loan agreements or museum practices are false.
As the steward of our nation’s treasures and history, the Smithsonian preserves and protects all objects and artifacts in its collection to ensure their long-term conservation and to safeguard them for future generations.
Attorney Lindsey Halligan is Trump’s hands-on person who identifies items to eliminate in what she labels “improper ideology” in Smithsonian institutions. Halligan, a former beauty queen, now serves as Special Assistant to the President. Halligan is a Florida lawyer and a University of Miami School of Law graduate. She views such exhibits as emphasizing America’s darker history and believes they divide the nation. Items are being returned to the lender. Dr. Amos Brown lent a personal Bible and a rare copy of History of the Negro Race in America from 1618 to 1880, which are also being returned.
Halligan’s recorded office number is 720-435-2870. Please call her and request that she not remove our history.
History of the Musuem
The museum opened in 2016 and is sometimes referred to as the “Blacksonian.”
The National Museum opened in 2016 under the Obama presidency. Early efforts started in 1915, but the contemporary push began in the 1970s, led by Representatives John Lewis, JC Watts, Jr., and Senators Sam Brownback and Max Cleland. In 2023, an Act of Congress formally established the NMAAHC as a Smithsonian institution. The museum was established by an Act of Congress.
President George W. Bush signed legislation in 2001 and established a 23-member commission to study the feasibility of such a museum. In 2005, President Bush endorsed placing the museum on the National Mall. To date, the museum has collected more than 40,000 artifacts, and 300,000 individuals are members. They report about 1 million visitors per annum. Today, it is the second most visited Smithsonian museum and the eighth most visited museum in the United States.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries…
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is urging Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to reject an executive order from President Trump that called to restore “truth and sanity” to the Smithsonian Institution. Roberts serves as the Chancellor of the Smithsonian. Vice President Vance also sits on the Smithsonian board and is also leading the effort to eliminate Black artifacts.
“It is imperative that you, along with your fellow Regents, continue the storied legacy of the Smithsonian that tells the American story honestly and completely,” Jeffries wrote in a letter to Roberts stating, “President Trump’s proclamation, which seeks to whitewash our history, is cowardly and unpatriotic. It must fail.”
The Congressional Black Causus
America today has 62 African American congressmen, more than at any other point in history.
What are they doing to ensure that the documents, artifacts, and factual evidence of African American history remain in place? Call your congressman to ask what they are doing.
As of 2023, the United States Census Bureau reports that there are 48.3 million African American individuals in this country. This is not a political issue. This is an American issue, a historical issue, a moral issue.
If we allow Trump to erase and change our history, he will soon erase and change all of us in America. History cannot be ignored, even if it is dark, because it is authentic America.
