Hannah Rosen

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I'm Hannah Rosen.

Thank you for listening.

Over the many years of raising kids in D.C.

public schools, I've experienced Black History Month the way many Americans do.

I've helped my kids make poster boards, and as they got older, PowerPoints, celebrating the achievements of many famous Black Americans.

Jackie Robinson, Booker T. Washington, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks.

Black History Month celebrations tend to follow what the Atlantic's Adam Harris calls a formula.

But this year might call for something more radical.

I'm Hannah Rosen.

This is Radio Atlantic.

Here is a missive from President Trump that typifies his attitude about Black history.

Quote, The Smithsonian is, all caps, out of control.

Where everything discussed is how horrible our country is, how bad slavery was, he posted over the summer.

The president has restored Confederate names to Army bases and removed lessons and images about slavery from federally funded institutions.

Just this week, a federal judge ordered the administration to restore panels at what's known as the President's House in Philadelphia that discussed, quote, the dirty business of slavery.

The federal judge wrote, "...an agency cannot arbitrarily decide what is true based on its own whims or the whims of the new leadership."