Trump Admin Compares Racial Justice Activists to Slavery Apologists on MLK Day

The Trump administration released a pamphlet dubbed “The 1776 Report,” the final report of a committee on civic education created last year, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Trump announced the 1776 Commission in September 2020 to promote “patriotic education,” and the report released Monday is the culmination of its effort. In the new report, the administration names as its opponent The New York Times’ “1619 Project,” a suite of historical journalism and essays positing the founding of the United States not as the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 but rather the first touchdown of a slave ship on American shores in 1619. The project’s title essay won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. The “The 1776 Report” material reads, “By turning to bitterness and judgment, distorted histories of those like Howard Zinn or the journalists behind the ‘1619 Project’ have prevented their students from learning to think inductively with a rich repository of cultural, historical, and literary referents...They disdain today’s students, just as they doubt the humanity, goodness, or benevolence in America’s greatest historical figures.” The pamphlet also warns against a “shadow government” in passages that echo President Donald Trump’s own evidence-free warnings against “the deep state” and compares contemporary racial justice activists to defenders of slavery. The Trump booklet says, “Indeed, there are uncanny similarities between 21st century activists of identity politics and 19th century apologists for slavery.”