Black Church Leaders Promote Membership Of African American History Museum Amid Trump Whitewashing

As the Trump administration’s agenda to make Black history invisible again rages on, it’s left up to the Black collective to pick up the slack that government-sanctioned white nationalism is leaving behind. 

Last month, we reported that President Donald Trump’s latest bid to rewrite American history by omitting its overwhelming history of systemic racism and anti-Black oppression targeted the Smithsonian Institution and, specifically, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). The White House has claimed the executive order Trump signed was aimed at correcting  a “concerted and widespread” effort over the past decade to rewrite American history by replacing “objective facts” with a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth,” adding that it casts the “founding principles” of the United States in a “negative light.” Now, we all know that every thing Trump knows about American history, “objective facts,” or the Founding Fathers’ “founding principles” can fit in one of those “Cleland Notes” pamphlets the Cliff and Claire Huxtable warned their kids about (and that’s being generous because Theo would never), but that hasn’t stopped his administration from taking over or defunding any institution of learning that allegedly teaches what he and his MAGA minions consider “improper ideology,” and forcing their own ideology, which is virtually indistinguishable from everything white nationalism has always been.

So, now, Black church leaders like Baltimore pastor Rev. Robert Turner are stepping in to protect and promote the NMAAHC in an effort to thwart Trump’s agenda to eradicate non-whitewashed Black history.

From the Associated Press:

Turner knelt in prayer and laid a wreath at the entrance of the museum in support of its mission, which incurred President Donald Trump’s criticism alongside other Smithsonian Institution sites. In a March 27 executive order, Trump alleged that Smithsonian exhibits had disparaged the nation’s history via a “divisive, race-centered ideology.”

Turner wanted to show support for the museum, which opened in 2016 and received its 10 millionth visitor in 2023. The museum tells the history of chattel slavery, Jim Crow segregation and its lingering effects, but it also highlights the determination, successes and contributions of Black Americans and Black institutions.

“I laid my wreath down there to show solidarity with the museum and the history that they present every day,” said Turner, pastor of Empowerment Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore.

He said his church has committed to becoming a museum member, and he’s encouraged church members to do the same. Membership costs start at $25 per year, according to an online form on the museum site.

His church is not alone, as other predominantly Black congregations are taking similar steps.

Turner said he got the idea from the Rev. Otis Moss III of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, whose church also joined the museum and who urged members to do the same. “For only $25 a year, you can protect Black history,” Moss told his church.

Two other Black pastors told The Associated Press they also supported the effort.

One was the Rev. Jacqui J. Lewis, senior minister at Middle Church in New York City — home to a multiracial congregation affiliated with the United Church of Christ.

“We belonged to the museum since its opening, and we just made another donation to them in light of this administration’s policies,” she told the AP. The gift, she said, was a $1,000 “Easter Love donation.”

Bishop Timothy Clarke of the First Church of God in Columbus, Ohio, said he would be emulating Moss in making an appeal to his predominantly African American congregation.

Since at least 2023, Black churches across the country have been taking up the practice of educating their communities on Black history and social studies in order to combat the stifling of those stories at the hands of white and eternally fragile Republicans who prioritize jingoism and Caucasian comfort over truth and “objective facts.” Earlier this month, we reported that Dr. Marvin Dunn, a former psychology professor at Florida International University, had begun teaching Black history under a tree on the school’s campus without the university’s permission in order to combat Trump’s agenda and how it has reinforced Florida’s consistent agenda to sanitize Black history for white consumption.

As always, it’s up to Black people to protect our own stories while they’re at risk of being lost to white people’s effort to protect their own feelings. It’s a sad state of affairs, but the fight presses on. 

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