Trump Celebrates Black Historical past Month in Washington

President Donald Trump hosted a reception on the White Space on Feb. 20, celebrating Black Historical past Month and the function African American citizens have performed in U.S. trade and the Progressive Conflict.

Trump invited a bunch of black political figures, activists, and celebrities, together with golfing legend Tiger Woods, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), ESPN host Sage Steele, former NFL participant Jack Brewer, soccer legend and U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas nominee Herschel Walker, and Alveda King, a niece of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK).

Trump mentioned the inclusion of statues honoring black historic figures at his deliberate Nationwide Lawn of American Heroes and stated this 12 months he was once paying “tribute to the generations of black legends, champions, warriors and patriots who helped force our nation ahead to greatness.”

“The ultimate management attempted to cut back all of American historical past to a unmarried 12 months, 1619, however beneath our management, we honor the indispensable function black American citizens have at all times performed within the immortal reason behind some other date, 1776,” Trump stated, contrasting the 12 months enslaved Africans arrived within the Virginia colony with the 12 months of the Declaration of Independence.

“The theme of this 12 months’s party is African American citizens and hard work, and we need to thank the entire black employees, development employees, and each and every different employee. They do a role like no person can do, and we need to simply thank them very a lot for his or her contribution,” he added.

Trump stated Prince Estabrook, an enslaved African American guy who was once wounded whilst preventing on the Fight of Lexington, one of the most first battles of the Progressive Conflict, can be memorialized with a statue within the Nationwide Lawn of American Heroes. The president stated different statues would function “capitalist black American citizens” and primary black historic figures equivalent to Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, MLK, Muhammed Ali, and Aretha Franklin.

“It’s going to be a statue park,” Trump stated on Thursday. “We’re choosing the overall websites now, it’s between more than a few states that need it very dangerous.”

The order requires the checklist to be created “as expeditiously as imaginable” forward of subsequent 12 months’s celebrations.

Trump on Jan. 31 signed a proclamation spotting February 2025 as Nationwide Black Historical past Month and calling for “public officers, educators, librarians, and all of the other people of america to watch this month with suitable methods, ceremonies, and actions.”

Trump’s rite comes as his govt order finishing the government’s range, fairness, and inclusion (DEI) methods takes impact. The Division of Protection issued steerage that stated operating hours will have to now not be used to have fun consciousness months equivalent to Black Historical past Month, Ladies’s Historical past Month, and Nationwide Incapacity Employment Consciousness Month.

Some Democrats in Washington have stated Trump’s DEI order objectives methods that advertise racial inclusion, whilst Republicans have criticized DEI for being racially discriminatory.

CJ Pearson, a countrywide cochair of the Republican Nationwide Committee’s adolescence advisory council, stated the president’s insurance policies “aren’t selling racism, however what they’re doing is manifesting the dream of the good Martin Luther King, Jr.: a country the place one isn’t judged via the colour in their pores and skin however as an alternative via the content material in their persona.”

The Related Press contributed to this document.