Conservative Blacks Call Out the Smithsonian's Terrible Take on Black American History

Earl Walker Jackson, a Black church bishop, author, and political commentator,

 

 had some choice words about the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and its descent into anti-American, woke indoctrination that demonizes the American experience, particularly the Black American experience.

Black bishop and author Earl Walker Jackson, a descendant of enslaved ancestors, is criticizing the Smithsonian National Museum of American History for what he said amounts to anti-American "indoctrination" against the "greatest nation on earth."

Although his great-grandparents were enslaved, Jackson believes that "if you were born an American, you hit the proverbial lottery because you have more opportunity and hope than any people living anywhere else on the planet."

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Jackson said the latest controversy over what the White House described as the Smithsonian’s woke "ideological capture" angered him because of what he views as smears against the U.S.

Jackson's entire interview linked above is quite insightful, and he echoes my sentiments as well as other Black conservatives. 

"This is a wonderful country; it's the greatest nation on earth."

Bishop Earl Walker Jackson, a descendant of slaves, is blasting what he calls anti-American "indoctrination" at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Jackson, whose great-grandparents were enslaved, says Americans are being taught to view the country through race, ethnicity, and class instead of recognizing the opportunities it provides.

"If you were born an American, you hit the proverbial lottery because you have more opportunity and hope than any people living anywhere else on the planet."

His criticism comes after a White House report accused the museum of "ideological capture," fueling new scrutiny on Capitol Hill over how the Smithsonian presents American history.

Bishop Jackson is not alone. While the leftists want to foment angst and complication, my relationship with America is anything but. As a great-granddaughter of slaves who is also one-sixteenth Native American, America is the land where I was born and raised and that I love. Thanks to the opportunities I've received, it has loved me back. It is the home where my family built their lives and fortunes and where I am building mine. Being an American is a privilege, and the dark and unsavory portions of that history make the transcendent portions even more triumphant. America in context is all part of the fabric and design, and the efforts to rend or rework that design only destroy the entire tapestry. So, the warped and wrongheaded mission of the Smithsonian, and museum director Dr. Anthea Hartig, is geared to destroy America, rather than spotlight her. 

As RedState reported, the Smithsonian Institution has been under fire by the Trump administration for its focus on political indoctrination rather than actual education. In July, the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) held hearings on the 162-page PDF report: "Rewriting American History: Examining the Smithsonian’s Efforts to Reshape the Past." 

 

The White House Domestic Policy Council issued this document on July 4, which detailed the ways in which the National Museum of American History has pushed “woke” ideology that minimizes the Founding Fathers, rewrites the narrative on slavery and the Black experience in order to emphasize systemic injustice and promote social justice means, and how the museum views every historical American milestone through the lens of race, gender, immigration, economic inequality, and sexuality, rather than U.S. history as it has been traditionally taught. 

Museum Director Hartig was not only singled out in the report, but was questioned extensively at the DOGE hearing. Her answers, or lack of them, ranged from ridiculous to absolutely nonsensical. Hartig drank the Kool-Aid long ago, and it oozes through all of her work. In a presentation to UCLA students in February 2025, Hartig said:

[The] "United States’ long and violent racial history continues to be present in our reckoning, if you will" and said that "redress in the form of reparation, of course, goes beyond acknowledgement of wrongdoing; it should leverage responsibility, it should think about the act of correction, as we pursue restorative justice and, for us [on the call], restorative justice through history."

How does "restorative justice" look to Hartig? So far it's radical Marxist Angela Davis being promoted as a feminist hero and Mickey Mouse being deemed racist because Steamboat Willie is a reflection of "blackface minstrelry." It's clear: Hartig has lost the plot, and clear-thinking Black Americans know this. Yet, Hartig gets paid $370,000 dollars annually to embed revisionist history into a national museum that is visited by the world, giving a warped perspective on America and the American experience.

It is pivotal that the Trump administration is exposing this and working to return the museum back to its roots. As Bishop Jackson and I have affirmed, there are plenty of us who refuse and refute the liberal indoctrination, as well as call out this disservice to the American experience projected through singular lenses of oppression and divisiveness. 

 

John Allante McAuley, a former candidate for Philadelphia GOP chairman, took the time to visit the President's House Slave Exhibit in Philadelphia, because the usual Black activists and AWFL suspects were screaming that the Trump administration is whitewashing slavery. McCauley videoed some of his thoughts, which I have linked below. 

The locus of his assessment is spot on. McAuley said, "Once again, you have Black liberals doing the bidding of white liberals here, and they want to keep you angry."

Bingo. It goes back to the fabric of our country. If you feel a part of it, you protect and defend it; if you don't, you seek to tear it apart. 

McAuley continued:

"They want to keep us angry, they want to keep us hating America. Black people act like America is not for them, when it was business decisions why things happened hundreds of years ago.

"None of what happened in the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, have nothing to do with where Black people are today.

"There's no accountability being taught. And they want you angry over slave panels that the majority of Philadelphians — Black Philadelphians — have never visited." 

We hope the Trump administration will work to Make Museums Factual Again. In the meantime, we'll keep debunking the lies and indoctrination that want to dishonestly remake American history. 

"I came down to the President's House exhibit to see what the controversy is about regarding the language used to describe the enslaved people who worked for George Washington. I talk about how the conversation is more nuanced than what the media reports, and I discuss the importance of understanding the full history, including the role of Africans in the slave trade. I also share the story of Anthony Johnson, a Black man who owned indentured servants and was involved in the John Casor case, which I argue laid the foundation for chattel slavery. I express frustration with what I see as a culture of degeneracy in the Black community today and argue that historical slavery is not an excuse for current issues."