Underscoring the backwards meaning of “Make America Great Again,” the Trump administration is touting the president’s executive order terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the federal government as the “most important federal civil rights measure in decades.” The saying “history repeats itself” is particularly fitting in our current moment, because the reality is Trump’s war on DEI is reminiscent of Jim Crow era efforts to subjugate Black people. Make no mistake, the goal is to destroy the multiracial democracy that was painstakingly built in the 1960s.
These blatant attempts to usurp decades of civil rights gains call for a coordinated resistance.To structure such a resistance, we can turn to the very history that shaped it — the Black freedom struggle. By looking to the Civil Rights Movement, we find a blueprint that outlines how, today, we can mobilize our communities, advocate for change, and use state power to initiate progress.
