The president mentioned this yr’s theme is a salute to black staff. He additionally mentioned together with black figures in his Backyard of American Heroes.
President Donald Trump hosted a reception on the White Home on Feb. 20, celebrating Black Historical past Month and the position African People have performed in U.S. commerce and the Revolutionary Conflict.
Trump invited a bunch of black political figures, activists, and celebrities, together with golf 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 Backyard of American Heroes and mentioned this yr he was paying “tribute to the generations of black legends, champions, warriors and patriots who helped drive our nation ahead to greatness.”
“The final administration tried to scale back all of American historical past to a single yr, 1619, however beneath our administration, we honor the indispensable position black People have at all times performed within the immortal reason behind one other date, 1776,” Trump mentioned, contrasting the yr enslaved Africans arrived within the Virginia colony with the yr of the Declaration of Independence.
“The theme of this yr’s celebration is African People and labor, and we need to thank the entire black staff, building staff, and each different employee. They do a job like no person can do, and we need to simply thank them very a lot for his or her contribution,” he added.
Trump mentioned Prince Estabrook, an enslaved African American man who was wounded whereas preventing on the Battle of Lexington, one of many first battles of the Revolutionary Conflict, could be memorialized with a statue within the Nationwide Backyard of American Heroes. The president mentioned different statues would characteristic “capitalist black People” and main black historic figures resembling Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, MLK, Muhammed Ali, and Aretha Franklin.
“It’s going to be a statue park,” Trump mentioned on Thursday. “We’re choosing the ultimate websites now, it’s between numerous states that need it very unhealthy.”
The order requires the checklist to be created “as expeditiously as potential” forward of subsequent yr’s celebrations.
Trump on Jan. 31 signed a proclamation recognizing February 2025 as Nationwide Black Historical past Month and calling for “public officers, educators, librarians, and all of the folks of the USA to look at this month with acceptable packages, ceremonies, and actions.”
Golf legend Tiger Woods speaks alongside U.S. President Donald Trump throughout a reception honoring Black Historical past Month within the East Room of the White Home in Washington on Feb. 20, 2025. Win McNamee/Getty Photos
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks alongside U.S. golfer Tiger Woods throughout a reception for Black Historical past Month within the East Room of the White Home in Washington on Feb. 20, 2025. Jim Watson/AFP by way of Getty Photos
Trump’s ceremony comes as his govt order ending the federal authorities’s range, fairness, and inclusion (DEI) packages takes impact. The Division of Protection issued steering that mentioned working hours ought to not be used to have a good time consciousness months resembling Black Historical past Month, Girls’s Historical past Month, and Nationwide Incapacity Employment Consciousness Month.
Some Democrats in Washington have mentioned Trump’s DEI order targets packages that promote racial inclusion, whereas Republicans have criticized DEI for being racially discriminatory.
CJ Pearson, a nationwide cochair of the Republican Nationwide Committee’s youth advisory council, mentioned 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 nation the place one isn’t judged by the colour of their pores and skin however as a substitute by the content material of their character.”
The Related Press contributed to this report.