Critics See Trump Attacks On The 'black Smithsonian' As An Effort To Sanitize Racism In Us History

President Donald Trump's order accusing the Smithsonian Institution of not reflecting American history notes correctly that the country's Founding Fathers declared that "all men are created equal."

But it doesn't mention that the founders enshrined slavery into the U.S. Constitution and declared enslaved persons as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of the Census.

Civil rights advocates, historians and Black political leaders sharply rebuked Trump on Friday for his order, entitled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History." They argued that his executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution is his administration's latest move to downplay how race, racism and Black Americans themselves have shaped the nation's story.

"It seems like we're headed in the direction where there's even an attempt to deny that the institution of slavery even existed, or that Jim Crow laws and segregation and racial violence against Black communities, Black families, Black individuals even occurred," said historian Clarissa Myrick-Harris, a professor at Morehouse College, the historically Black campus in Atlanta.

The Thursday executive order cites the National Museum of African American History and Culture by name and argues that the Smithsonian as a whole is engaging in a "concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation's history."