MAGA group touts “patriots,” but erases slavery

Freedom 250’s – A MAGA-aligned group’s 85-page student-focused “historical heroes” document makes room for figures like Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, but uses the words “slave” and “slavery” only once each—and never mentions racism—sketching a sanitized version of a

The document arrives with a promise: teach students about “historical heroes” ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary. But in the 85 pages distributed by a MAGA-aligned group, the country’s central crime—enslavement—and the racism that sustained it are treated like optional footnotes.

For roughly two centuries, Black people in territories that would become the United States were enslaved by white owners. That history sits at the center of the American story. but the document’s language is strikingly spare: the words “slave” and “slavery” appear once each. and racism is not mentioned at all. Even when the biographies highlight people who fought for freedom—Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Booker T. Washington—the framing casts them as “patriots” with a “can-do” spirit.

The document is connected to an art contest for students being put on by the group Freedom 250, described as an alternative to America 250, the congressionally approved body tasked with organizing celebrations for the nation’s semiquincentennial.

To critics, the omissions are not just editorial choices. They are a public signal about what gets centered, and what gets pushed out, as the country prepares to mark 250 years of independence alongside 161 years since the official end of slavery.

The stakes are sharpened by a broader effort underway in Washington. Bryan Stevenson. the co-founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. put it plainly: “It’s more than just trying to erase Black history. ” he said. “It’s trying to alter American history.” He argued that the story of slavery is foundational—pointing to a Civil War that. he said. killed hundreds of thousands of people—and said the consequences stretch into constitutional amendments that shaped the 20th century. In his view. refusing to be honest about that past “just creates a misunderstanding of who we are as a nation.”.

In 2021. then-President Joe Biden declared Juneteenth a federal holiday in the wake of racial justice protests that swept the country after George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis. Juneteenth commemorates June 19. 1865. when the last enslaved people in Texas were told slavery was officially over—more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

But Stevenson’s concerns echo complaints that the Trump administration has stalled progress on honoring Black history and has tried, at points, to remove references to it from public institutions.

Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, rejected the premise that the administration is whitewashing history. In an emailed statement. Rogers said “Instead of catering to the concerted efforts to rewrite American history and adopt left-wing ideology aimed at diminishing American achievement. ” President Trump was “honoring our country’s extraordinary heritage and restoring a sense of national pride.” Rogers added that the president had “put an end to the radical left and the media’s divisive and inaccurate characterization of our nation’s history. ” including what Rogers described as its influence “infiltrat[ing] our national parks and museums. ” and that he was “restoring truth and sanity.”.

Two months after returning to the White House, Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity in American History.” The order directed federal institutions to deemphasize slavery and racism when discussing American history.

The order’s language declares that “Over the past decade. Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history. replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” It says that rather than fostering unity and deeper understanding. the rewriting “deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame.”.

In practice. the executive order singles out the Smithsonian Institution. described as the world’s largest museum complex and home to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Trump said the Smithsonian has “come under the influence of a divisive. race-centered ideology.” Later. he complained on social media about how the Smithsonian discusses slavery.

In an August 2025 Truth Social post. Trump wrote that “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL. where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is. how bad Slavery was. and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been – Nothing about Success. nothing about Brightness. nothing about the Future.” He said in the post that he was ordering a review of the Smithsonian museums. which include the 2016-opening National Museum of African-American History and Culture.

That museum, the administration acknowledges through its focus on a comprehensive account of slavery, tells a multifaceted story of Black history and contributions to American culture while also covering the history of slavery in the United States.

Mariams Rashid, the associate director of racial equality and justice at the Center for American Progress, called that framing a moral and historical misstep. “It’s egregious to talk about owning another human being, and I don’t know how somebody can spin it in a good light,” she said.

As part of the Smithsonian review. the White House asked the institution to turn over all materials related to any content the public sees. its processes for deciding how to display exhibits. and anything related to its America 250 programming. Trump said the storied institution could face budget cuts for failing to comply.

The Smithsonian, which gets most of its funding from tax dollars, turned over copious amounts of materials, though the next steps remain unclear.

Sarah Weicksel. the executive director of the American Historical Association. warned that reducing historical accuracy damages more than public understanding—it also shapes what comes next. “If you work with an incomplete past. you aren’t able to shape the future in ways that are based on historical evidence and understanding. ” she said.

The administration’s efforts to reshape how history is displayed have not been limited to museums.

National parks have seen their own fights. George Washington. a founding father who enslaved nine Black people at the President’s House in Philadelphia before Washington. D.C. was built. has long been memorialized at Independence Hall with an exhibit depicting the contradiction between espousing liberty for all while holding people in bondage.

In January. National Parks Service workers removed that exhibit. with a spokesperson saying the agency was abiding by the March 2025 executive order. The city sued the federal government, and a judge ordered the display to be restored. A federal judge then blocked the administration from removing it again while lawsuits play out in court.

Rashid said removing accurate information for a revisionist story “is a disservice to the visitors of those national parks.”

Similar incidents have surfaced as well. including in West Virginia. where National Park employees were reportedly instructed to remove information about slavery abolitionist John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park. At another unnamed park. a photo of the scarred back of a man who escaped slavery in Louisiana was reportedly set to be taken down. according to the Washington Post. Those removals were tied to Trump’s executive order.

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration last week to reinstall any historical or scientific displays it had removed.

Weicksel framed the broader threat: “If they’re able to seize hold of and create a dominant narrative of U.S. history that excludes many of the people who lived that history. then our students. our museum visitors. our national park visitors. and all Americans will not have access to the entirety of their history.”.

She added that the historical erasure doesn’t stay locked in the past. “You’re not going to understand the need for a civil rights movement.”

That concern—about what happens when the record is bent—has also reached the halls of education and lawmaking. Historians and other experts said that if the administration’s reframing succeeds even partially. it could reshape policy debates because lawmakers draw on historical context to justify civil rights legislation and other protections.

Weicksel argued that stripping away the full timeline would leave students unable to understand why unrest followed 1865, why there was effort to create the Ku Klux Klan, and why a civil rights movement was necessary.

Her warning lands in a political landscape where Trump has repeatedly criticized affirmative action in college admissions. He has called it unfair to white people. saying in an interview with The New York Times in January that “White people were very badly treated. where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a university to college.”.

The administration has also launched what it calls a war on colleges—particularly Ivy Leagues—accusing elite institutions of admitting Black students over white ones because of race. The administration has sought to pressure schools by threatening to pull federal funding unless they comply with orders to turn over student demographic data. alter academic programming to align with Trump’s policy goals. and prioritize admitting white and conservative students.

Beyond classrooms and museums, Trump has also pushed back against a Biden administration project to take down monuments and rename military bases named after Confederate soldiers.

After the Confederacy lost the Civil War and all enslaved people were freed. former Confederates and enslavers. Stevenson said. embarked on an effort to romanticize the pre-emancipation South. That effort produced the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. an ahistorical myth that claimed slavery was not the main purpose of the Civil War.

Rashid said that romantic narrative helped set the nation’s current terms. “That’s why we’re in the position that we’re in,” she said. “We provided that little in after the Civil War, where we allowed people to tell history inaccurately.”

Trump promised to restore Confederate names to military bases renamed in late 2020 after Congress passed a law banning military bases from being named after insurrectionists. To avoid breaking that law. the administration restored older Confederate names by finding soldiers and service members with the same last name.

Fort Bragg in North Carolina—originally named after Confederate general Braxton Bragg—was briefly renamed to Fort Liberty. The U.S. Army announced it would be reverted to Bragg, this time named after a World War II soldier.

At a speech at the base, Trump signaled the political intent as he addressed a booing crowd. “Can you believe they changed that name in the last administration for a little bit?” he asked. “Fort Bragg is in. That’s the name. And Fort Bragg it shall always remain. That’s never going to be happening again.”.

The drive to resurrect Confederate shrines has been set against how other countries have confronted their pasts.

Stevenson compared the U.S. to Germany after Nazi rule fell, when he said Germany’s education system provides comprehensive instruction about the Holocaust. He also pointed to South Africa after apartheid ended. when he said the new regime ensured a museum detailed the nation’s racist history. In his view, “The U.S. still has never had such a reckoning.”.

He returned to power—who held it, and who didn’t have to give it up. “I think people in this country have been reluctant to talk about this because the people who benefited from slavery continued to be in power after the Civil War. ” Stevenson said. “The people who benefited from terror violence and Jim Crow laws never had to give up power.”.

Back in the classroom—where the 85-page Freedom 250 document is designed to guide young students into the shape of history—the omissions are already visible. The document lifts certain names into the spotlight. but it does so while limiting the terms that directly name slavery and omitting racism altogether. For critics, that isn’t merely incomplete teaching.

It’s the beginning of a public argument over what the country will admit it was—and what it will allow students to learn it means.

Freedom 250 America 250 historical heroes Frederick Douglass Sojourner Truth Booker T. Washington slavery racism Juneteenth Restoring Truth and Sanity in American History Smithsonian National Parks Service Independence Hall exhibit John Brown raid Harpers Ferry Center for American Progress Equal Justice Initiative American Historical Association Bryan Stevenson Sarah Weicksel Mariam Rashid Fort Bragg Lost Cause