Since taking office in January 2025, President Donald Trump has launched an all-out assault on the nation\u2019s past. He has cut funding and signed executive orders targeting historical programming at public institutions, including national parks, museums, and public schools, to silence or obscure the histories of communities of color and the systemic inequalities and racism those communities have endured since European settlers landed in what would later become the United States.<\/p>\n
Now, some history advocacy organizations are leaning into community-based education programs to continue teaching a more diverse and comprehensive picture of the nation\u2019s past.<\/p>\n
\u201cEducation doesn\u2019t have to be within school buildings. We need to have outside activities that provide the teachings of Black history. I think that\u2019s crucial,\u201d says Kristi Williams, founder of\u00a0Black History Saturdays<\/a>, an organization offering free Black history classes to community members of all ages in Tulsa, Oklahoma. \u201cWhether they be in our churches, whether they be on the sidewalks, or in different spaces, we have to create those spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n The need for community-led spaces has become increasingly apparent over the past few months as the Trump administration has sought to stifle cultural institutions dedicated to preserving the histories of communities of color while promoting its white supremacist political agenda. In March 2025, the White House\u00a0issued an executive order<\/a>\u00a0to \u201cRestore Truth and Sanity to American Education,\u201d which targeted the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of African American History and Culture. While the\u00a0museum\u2019s mission<\/a>\u00a0is to capture and share \u201cthe unvarnished truth of African American history and culture,\u201d Trump\u2019s executive order labeled its work \u201cdivisive\u201d and \u201canti-American.\u201d<\/p>\n Following the executive order, the National Park Service (NPS) reportedly\u00a0scrubbed information<\/a>\u00a0from its exhibits about the great abolitionist\u00a0Harriet Tubman<\/a>\u00a0and the Underground Railroad. That network of secret routes and safe houses for freedom seekers escaping to the Northern U.S. in the late-18th and 19th centuries and Tubman, the network\u2019s most famous \u201cconductor,\u201d have become symbols of resistance to enslavement. On its site, NPS replaced a large photo of Tubman with images of postage stamps highlighting \u201cBlack\/white cooperation.\u201d It later walked back the changes after public outrage.<\/p>\n Around the same time, NPS removed the\u00a0Rio Vista Reception Center<\/a>\u00a0in Socorro, Texas, the most recently designated Latinx National Historic Landmark, from its site. That landmark honors the contributions of Braceros, millions of guest workers from Mexico who came to the U.S. to mitigate farm labor shortages beginning during World War II.<\/p>\n Experts warn that the Trump administration\u2019s actions will also affect future preservation activities and education programming, threatening to reverse a decade-long\u00a0institutional shift<\/a>\u00a0toward expanding the nation\u2019s preservation system to include more sites and stories representing the nation\u2019s communities of color.<\/p>\n \u201cThis executive order, which restricts federal funding for projects addressing systemic inequality, directly assaults the truth of our nation\u2019s history,\u201d says Sehila Mota Casper, executive director of\u00a0Latinos in Heritage Conservation<\/a>\u00a0(LHC), the leading nonprofit organization working to preserve Latinx places in the United States. \u201cBy limiting funding and erasing Latinx narratives, it silences millions and jeopardizes the preservation of crucial histories.\u201d<\/p>\n The administration\u2019s actions follow similar efforts made during Trump\u2019s first term, when he issued a\u00a0similar executive order<\/a>\u00a0that sought to ban what he called \u201cdivisive concepts\u201d about race from federal institutions. In 2020, Trump also created the 1776 Commission, which aimed to promote \u201cpatriotic education,\u201d a whitewashed version of the nation\u2019s past that obscures systemic racism. He\u00a0revived the commission<\/a>\u00a0this year in a January 2025 executive order.<\/p>\n The actions also mirror state-level efforts in recent years. Nationwide, more than 20 states have\u00a0introduced legislation<\/a>\u00a0or already have legislation in place restricting the teaching of race and the histories of America\u2019s communities of color. While Republican-led states have been at the forefront of this regressive movement, many Democratic-led states have also moved similar legislation forward.\u00a0At least 44 states\u00a0<\/a>have begun debating legislation that would limit how schools can teach students about race, according to an analysis from EdWeek.<\/p>\n Williams launched Black History Saturdays in response to Oklahoma\u2019s House Bill 1775, which was signed into law in 2021 and\u00a0bans eight vague-sounding concepts<\/a>\u00a0and is meant to restrict discussion of race and power in the classroom. Among the prohibited classroom content is anything that could cause students to \u201cfeel discomfort, guilt, [or] anguish.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut history\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0uncomfortable,\u201d says Williams. \u201cEspecially when you have been the aggressor in history and you don\u2019t want to come out looking like the bad person. But the thing is, we are still operating under the same system that protected slavery, and when students learn that, they\u2019re going to want to change it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Historians, educators, and\u00a0advocates argue<\/a>\u00a0that undermining efforts to enact systemic change could be the purpose of Trump\u2019s attacks on historical truth. Restricting education on race helps prevent Americans from developing an understanding of racism, how it has been maintained, and how it continues to function through the nation\u2019s\u00a0legal system<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0institutions<\/a>,\u00a0and through systematized violence<\/a>. The status quo serves figures such as those in Trump\u2019s administration, who have accumulated wealth and power thanks to the nation\u2019s systematized inequities; they are invested in continuing it. Similarly,\u00a0research has shown<\/a>\u00a0that Trump\u2019s agenda appeals especially to white, Christian, and male voters who are concerned about threats to their status.<\/p>\n Williams says that while the federal government\u2019s agenda and its reasoning are part of a grim trend, the recent crackdown has also \u201ccreated the right time for us to organize and learn how we can protect our histories.\u201d Black History Saturdays and LHC remain committed to teaching about racism and uplifting the histories of communities of color through their community-based education programs.<\/p>\n Black History Saturdays gives students of all backgrounds and ages in Tulsa a chance to learn about the historical struggles and contributions of African Americans at day-long monthly convenings in a repurposed schoolhouse. When Williams launched the program in 2023, it served 120 students. Now,\u00a0entering its third year<\/a>, there are nearly 400 regular attendees. The group is divided into eight classes sorted by age. The youngest participants are preschoolers, and the adult classes include a 90-year-old attendee. The program also offers free breakfast and lunch to participants, where a chef \u201cteaches Black history through his food,\u201d says Williams.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, LHC, a nationwide organization, offers online workshops to community groups and educators to help them lead Latinx historic preservation and education efforts in their communities. These workshops are based on LHC-designed curricula, and the organization offers a downloadable\u00a0Latinx Preservation Toolkit<\/a>, which provides step-by-step guidance on historic designation processes to equip communities with the knowledge to lead preservation efforts.<\/p>\n To hold the federal government accountable, LHC also\u00a0issued the first phase<\/a>\u00a0of its Equity Study in April 2025. That study examines how and why Latinx heritage sites are underrepresented in official efforts to recognize and preserve historic sites. It also calls for increasing funding and attention to such work to counter the Trump administration\u2019s regressive approach. Williams says she sees community-of-color-led efforts like these as \u201cpart of a national movement to reclaim education, memory, and power.\u201d<\/p>\n For historian Ida Jones, author of\u00a0Mary McLeod Bethune in Washington, D.C.: Education and Activism in Logan Circle<\/em>, community-led programs focused on Black or Latinx histories follow in the tradition of earlier educators of color who taught in their communities when the government failed or refused to do so. She draws a line back to the late-19th and early-20th centuries, when a generation of Black Americans whose parents had endured enslavement began exploring their identities as African Americans. Education was an essential\u00a0part of this project<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mary McLeod Bethune<\/a>, a teacher and civil rights activist, and Carter G. Woodson, a historian and\u00a0creator of Black History Month<\/a>, were two of the movement\u2019s most prominent leaders. \u201cWhat Bethune did, what Woodson did, was create a curriculum to teach the African American community, who didn\u2019t know their history,\u201d Jones explains. Importantly, this generation of educators, who Jones says stood \u201con the cusp of enslavement and freedom, of property and citizenship,\u201d integrated their ancestors\u2019 African pasts, their experiences of enslavement and racism, and the ways they had endured and won their freedom, into a uniquely African American narrative. They were \u201cbuilding this case for their humanity at the same time in which they were trying to embrace their citizenship,\u201d says Jones.<\/p>\n While the Trump administration tries to paint Black histories and the histories of other communities of color as \u201canti-American,\u201d Jones says teaching these histories has always been a deeply American project. In Bethune and Woodson\u2019s time, Jones says,<\/p>\n \u201cThey sought to be patriots of the country in which they now lived and be integrated into the fabric or the tapestry of that narrative. African Americans never sought to stand opposed or outside of the conversation of American history and culture. They saw themselves and their children as citizens, as patriots, as residents, and Americans.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n