Federal Judge Blocks Trump's War on Black History

George Washington, America's first president, rotated his slaves between his homes to dodge state emancipation laws. It's an uncomfortable truth that the Trump administration doesn't want you to know.

This week, a federal judge delivered a stinging rebuke to the administration's systematic effort to erase Black history from public spaces, ordering the restoration of exhibits about "the dirty business of slavery" at Philadelphia's President's House.

The Orwellian Moment

Judge Cynthia Rufe opened her ruling with a quote from George Orwell, writing that a government agency "cannot arbitrarily decide what is true, based on its own whims or the whims of the new leadership."

The panels in question detailed how Washington, while living in Philadelphia, systematically moved his enslaved workers between Pennsylvania and Virginia to prevent them from gaining freedom under Pennsylvania's gradual emancipation law. After six months of residence, enslaved people could claim their liberty—so Washington made sure they never stayed that long.

These aren't opinions or interpretations. They're documented historical facts, supported by Washington's own correspondence where he sought advice on circumventing the law.

A Systematic Campaign

The Philadelphia case represents just one front in what Atlantic writer Clint Smith calls an "antagonistic" approach to Black history. The administration's efforts span multiple institutions:

• Restoring Confederate names to Army bases
• Removing books from the U.S. Naval Academy library
• Scaling back teaching about the Tuskegee Airmen at the Air Force Academy
• Attacking the Smithsonian Institution as "OUT OF CONTROL"

Trump's summer social media post captured the sentiment: "The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was."

The intensity is unprecedented. As Smith notes, this isn't just cultural pushback—it's state-sanctioned historical revision.

Why This Moment, Why This Intensity?

Historical backlash against Black progress isn't new. After Reconstruction came Jim Crow. After the civil rights movement came the Southern Strategy. But this moment is different.

"Historically, civil rights leaders could appeal to the federal government for protection," Smith explains. "Now the federal government is the antagonist."

This represents pushback against both the Obama era and the Black Lives Matter movement that intensified after George Floyd's murder. But unlike previous backlashes that came from states or extrajudicial forces, this one flows from the top of the federal government.

The Identity Crisis at the Heart

Why does teaching about Washington's slaves or Jefferson's contradictions provoke such fierce resistance? Smith offers a penetrating analysis: "If you have to tell a new story about Washington and Jefferson, you have to tell a new story about America's founding. If you have to tell a new story about America, you have to tell a new story about yourself."

This touches something existential. Atlantic's Adam Harris puts it personally: "If you're having to ask questions about how your grandparents—the people who took you fishing, who read you books—got to do the things they got to do, it really jars you and makes you fundamentally reassess your own standing in the world."

The Power of Proximity

Smith recently took his children to New Orleans, to the elementary school his mother attended as one of the first Black students to integrate New Orleans schools in the 1960s, alongside Ruby Bridges.

"I want them to understand that Black history isn't just Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King," he explains. "Their grandmother—not these people in books—was among the first wave of students to integrate a school."

This personal connection matters especially now. While the administration tries to control museums and schools, families and communities still have the power to share this history in meaningful ways.

The Jesse Jackson Reminder

Jesse Jackson's death this week provided another lesson in historical proximity. When Smith told his 7-year-old daughter that Jackson was with Martin Luther King when King was killed, "it blew her mind because in her mind, Martin Luther King and Jesus were around at the same time."

The "I Am Somebody" chant that Jackson made famous takes on new resonance: "I may be poor, I may be unemployed, I may be in prison, but I am somebody." It's a declaration of human dignity that transcends circumstance—exactly what comprehensive historical education aims to preserve.

Facts vs. Narrative Control

The administration frames this as choosing which facts to emphasize, asking why museums must "cause people shame" rather than being "uplifting." But Smith, a former high school teacher, sees something more troubling.

"There's an attempt to conflate the teaching of empiricism, of primary-source realities, and suggest that's somehow an ideological project rather than an empirical one," he argues.

The goal isn't to make students think Jefferson was evil, but to present the full picture: "He wrote 'all men are created equal' and he enslaved 600 people, including four of his own children. My role is not to tell you what to think, but to present the evidence."

The Liberation of Truth

Smith recalls growing up in 1990s New Orleans, "inundated with messages about all the things that were wrong with Black people" without the historical context to understand systemic causes.

"It wasn't until years later, when I encountered the scholarship and the history, that I learned the reason one part of New Orleans looks one way and another part looks different isn't because of the people in those communities. It's because of what has been done to those communities generation after generation."

The revelation was "profoundly liberating because this country can't lie to you anymore."

The morning comes, as Jesse Jackson said in his final public words. But only if we're willing to face the darkness first.