A Late Night Reid: Burn the history books and let the ashes blow away in the wind

The Elon-Trump-Thiel regime is making American history disappear while bringing back the 19th century economy.

There were never any slaves in America. And ok, to the extent there were, they enjoyed their service and spent most of their time singing old Negro spirituals in the fields. They even got Sundays off to go to church! What’s not to love? There was at some point an “underground railroad,” but its purpose was mainly “White-Black cooperation,” on… something. But not in helping people escape from slavery … which the slaves really enjoyed. Why would they want to escape??? Then an awful thing called the “war between the states” happened, when the North attacked the gentle and genteel South for no reason whatsoever! It was followed by a horror called “reconstruction” that ruined absolutely EVERYTHING. It was just like the movie “Gone With The Wind…” And I mean exactly like it!

Welcome to History In Trump’s Project 2025 America.

From Phil Lewis (who you should follow on this Substack thing…)

The National Park Service quietly edited its website about the Underground Railroad to remove key references and quotes from famed abolitionist Harriet Tubman and soften its language about slavery.

First reported by The Washington Post, visitors no longer see the large photograph of Tubman nor a quote attributed to her, where she describes herself as the “conductor” of the extensive network of routes and figures who helped enslaved persons escape to the North. Now, the webpage titled “What is the Underground Railroad” shows Postal Service stamps of abolitionist figures that emphasize “Black/White cooperation.”

“The Underground Railroad — the resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, through the end of the Civil War — refers to the efforts of enslaved African Americans to gain their freedom by escaping bondage,” the page once read. “Wherever slavery existed, there were efforts to escape.” It has been replaced with lines that describe the Underground Railroad as “one of the most significant expressions of the American civil rights movement,” and “bridged the divides of race,” and more.

The edit also removed a reference to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required the return of enslaved persons who had escaped to their so-called owners.

Readers can see these changes via the Wayback Machine, an online service that archives past versions of websites.

The Washington Post also discovered several edits across other pages that “softened descriptions of some of the most shameful moments of the nation’s past” by changing text from “enslaved African Americans” to “enslaved workers,” removing a page about “the life of Benjamin Franklin and his relationship with slavery,” and eliminating the phrases “systemic racism and historical bias” from a section about Black soldiers who fought during the American Revolution.

Several references to the Declaration of Independence singer Thomas Stone as a slaveowner were removed from multiple pages on the Stone National Historic site, the outlet reported.

The outcry over the changes to the Underground Railroad site caused such a stink, that by the close of business Monday, the original language had been restored. The Hegsethed-out Department of Defense also backed down and restored Jackie Robinson to the military’s website after a similar uproar. That’s good news, but having to fight each of these battles one by one is exhausting and inefficient. It absolutely raises the question of whether it’s wise to allow federally controlled museums to own any of the treasures donated by Black families — given the fact that we can’t trust the American people to not elect someone his own current vice president once called “maybe America’s Hitler.” And who is busy banning books from the Naval Academy library using key words like “white” and “Black” and “woman,” maybe using an AI prompt.

And it’s not just the books and the websites…

Sources I’ve spoken to who have eyes on the National Park Service say workers at some of our most cherished national historic sites are being besieged from above and below — from a regime that is demanding that the sites, including historic churches used by abolitionists and civil rights leaders, and old Trailways bus terminals where Freedom Riders began their journeys, stay open and operational while slashing their budgets; doing more with less — and from conservative white maga visitors hectoring them for not offering a sanitized version of American history and in some cases shrilling that their sites should be shut down altogether. But perhaps not while the angry magas are standing there, otherwise … they’d have to leave.

The right wing in this country is on a tear, and as one former National Parks Service leader told me, they fear the soon-to-be majority non-white nation they live in, and want to scrub its history before the inevitable takeover (while also hoping they can deport enough innocent Venezuelans to that notorious Salvadoran prison to reduce the brown population and prevent the demographic shift altogether.

Perhaps they’ve convinced themselves that covering up their forefathers’ (or even someone else’s forefathers’ past crimes since their own families came here after slavery) is crucial to protecting themselves and whiteness itself from what they have convinced themselves will be retribution by this nation’s former victims.

But in the frantic cover-up, they are making mistakes.

White conservatives: no white people ever did anything bad to Black or Brown people in America! If you say they did, you’re LYING!

Also white conservatives: watch our almost entirely white administration do cartoonishly evil things to Brown and Black people right now!

It’s like painting over the Black Lives Matter street mural in Washington D.C. Somehow it doesn’t make the murders of unarmed Black people go away, but hey, it makes maga feel good so maybe they’ll forget how much the Trump Tariffs are destroying their lives, farms and businesses…

I’ll note that today was the meeting of the Board of Regents, which administers the Smithsonian Institution, the cache of cherished museums in Washington D.C. that include what Black folks call the “Blacksonian” — the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Per its enabling legislation, passed in 1846, the Smithsonian board consists of the following 17 members:

As specified in the Smithsonian's charter, the Chief Justice of the United States and the Vice President of the United States are ex officio members of the Board, meaning that they serve as a duty of their office. The Chief Justice also serves as the Chancellor of the Smithsonian.

There are six congressional Regents: three Senators are appointed by the President pro tempore of the United States Senate and three Representatives are appointed by the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Their terms on the Board coincide with their elected terms in Congress, and they may be reappointed to the Board if reelected.

Nine Regents are from the general public, two of whom must reside in the District of Columbia and seven of whom must be inhabitants of the 50 states (but no two from the same state). Each is nominated by the Board of Regents and appointed for a statutory term of six years by a Joint Resolution of the Congress, which is then signed into law by the President. In accordance with the Bylaws adopted by the Board of Regents in 1979, citizen members may not serve more than two successive terms.

Full list of members can be found here. You might want to call one of them if they’re your Senator or representative…

From a source, the vice president does not typically attend the quarterly meetings, but there were concerns that this meeting, JD Vance, just might, given the attacks on the Smithsonian, and specifically the Blacksonian, from Trump — who absolutely hates accurate Black history and wants it scrubbed from every official institution in the U.S. He’s given JD the job of overseer in this regard, which puts the founding director of the Blacksonian, Dr. Lonnie Bunch, in jeopardy. In the end, Vance didn’t show, but as of tonight, the Smithsonian’s African American museum director, Kevin Young, has resigned. Not a good sign, although a spokesman for the Smithsonian says his resignation is unrelated to the Trump executive order banning “improper ideology” in all things. What we do know, is that Trump is recreating what the Daughters of the Confederacy pulled off after the civil war: burning the true history of the United States and letting the ashes blow away with the wind.