TO BE EQUAL: Banning Black History Month Revives ‘Lost Cause’ Lies

By: Marc Morial

“Let’s call this what it really is: resegregation. … Any official, including the president, who chooses to blame everything from plane crashes to wildfires on non-white, non-male people should be asked whether they believe that desegregation is to blame. Whether they believe resegregation is the answer. We need to bring back the language that describes what is actually happening.” — Karen Attiah

Whenever an anti-diversity extremist uses the word “woke” in a disparaging way, we must remember that the extremists themselves define “woke” as “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”

Anti-diversity activists don’t want to address systemic injustices that mainly benefit white men. They’d rather distort history to promote a mass delusion that those injustices never existed.

That’s why Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who built a national reputation by attacking diversity in the armed forces, has to ban recognition of Black History Month.

The racial justice uprising sparked by the murder of George Floyd nearly five years ago instilled a panic in the defenders of racial inequity, who launched a campaign in what they called “critical race theory” and now call “DEI.” At least 870 measures have been introduced at the federal, state and local level to stifle even the acknowledgement of institutional and systemic racism and discrimination. Even the measures that don’t pass are part of a broad effort to salt the earth against addressing systemic injustices. Since the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions two years ago, Black enrollment at top universities has fallen by 17%. Venture capital funding to Black-owned enterprises fell by 86% from 2021 to 2023. About one in eight companies say they will eliminate or scale back their diversity, equity and inclusion policies in 2025.

Black History Month grew out of “Douglass Day,” the Feb. 14 birthday celebration of the formerly enslaved abolitionist Frederick Douglass. In 1926, Black historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson built on that celebration, incorporating the birthday of “The Great Emancipator” Abraham Lincoln into Negro History Week. Woodson’s scholarship challenged the then-dominant “Lost Cause” myth that sought to erase the horrors of slavery and justify legal segregation. According to Lost Cause mythology, Black Americans had been content in their enslavement and were overwhelmed by the responsibilities of freedom. Through this lens, abolition and reconstruction had thrown the natural order into chaos, and Jim Crow segregation was a necessary correction.

Rather than promote the lie that Black Americans are content to live under a system of oppression, the modern Lost Cause movement promotes the lie that the system of oppression doesn’t exist. It promotes the lie that discriminatory practices aren’t to blame for race and gender gaps in wealth, income and civic life. It’s simply that white men are more competent.

Darren Beattie, appointed this week to be acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, posted recently on social media, “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.” Beattie was fired from a position in the previous Trump administration after CNN reported his connection to well-known white nationalists.

President Trump pointedly excised any mention of “prejudice and hardship” Black Americans face from his Black History Month proclamation.

The outrageous notion that anyone in a position of authority or responsibility who’s not a white man is so ingrained in the current administration that President Trump baselessly blamed diversity, equity and inclusion policies for the deadly Jan. 29 aviation accident at Reagan National Airport.

In an era when the defense secretary brazenly sports a tattoo of a white nationalist symbol, celebrating Black History Month resegregation is not just a right, but a responsibility. It’s not just about honoring the past but about determining the future.

Hon. Marc Morial is president/CEO of the National Urban League.