Trump’s stance on Black culture faces scrutiny

Jesse Owens’s unmatched athleticism at the 1936 Berlin Olympics humiliated the host Nazi regime, shattering a key ideological pillar upon which European empires expanded. Adolf Hitler abruptly exited the arena after watching Owens triumph, a reluctant admission that European physical superiority was a fallacy and that Black dominance on the track was a quantifiable fact. This challenged the claim that white Europeans were inherently superior, possessing greater intellectual and aesthetic capabilities.

In the 1930s, Hitler and his ministers launched a campaign to align arts, theatre, literature, architecture, and media with Nazi propaganda. European colonizers had long expanded their empires by destroying cultures and promoting their own superiority. Following World War II, western empires began to lose their hold on cultures and minds worldwide.

By the late 1960s, a Black freedom struggle in the US ignited a movement for African American identity, inspired by independence movements across the African continent and diaspora. The Black Arts Movement (BAM) aimed to transform Black politics, scholarship, and organizations, resulting in a creative explosion centered on Black life and experience. BAM fostered a new Black consciousness, prioritizing self-determination and challenging claims of white cultural supremacy.

After Owens’s death in 1980, Black athletes had exposed the myth of white superiority, paving the way for BAM’s efforts against white cultural and intellectual hegemony. BAM activists built their own institutions, including bookstores, publishing houses, theatres, galleries, museums, cultural centers, and scholarly journals. They established Black studies programs and curricula, recognizing that Black cultural production required Black intellectual production to secure its value and meaning.

In recent months, the Trump administration has advanced its culture wars by attempting to defund, demolish, and demote Black arts and culture, notably through takeovers of the Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, and Smithsonian Institution, along with firings of Black experts and leadership. This includes book bans and attempts to seize control of administrative, fiscal, and curricular matters at elite universities.

The ideological through-line from the white supremacy of the past to today is clear. BAM’s legacy can be found in the threat that Black culture and cultural institutions pose to new versions of authoritarianism. BAM’s blueprint for Black power persists, reorienting institutions and organizations.

Hitler was not affronted by Owens’s inclusion but by his victory. BAM’s great victory was exposing the fallacy of white cultural eminence. BAM artists understood that art itself was not solely capable of liberating Black people; it needed to be nurtured within Black communities by independent Black institutions.

The Kerner Commission suggested assimilating Black people into capitalism to quell the Black freedom struggle. BAM insisted that Black art be canonized by Black intellectuals.

Trump’s efforts to demolish and disappear Black culture reveal his understanding of its power. Diversity, inclusion, and representation reinforce the belief that Black cultural contributions hold value only within the domain of their oppressors. BAM activists did not seek approval from others, prioritizing the self-determination of Black culture.

Trump’s actions demonstrate a fear of Black culture’s potential, as his administration embodies the mythology of white supremacy. The mission, as Haki Madhubuti explains, is to become a whole people and to tell their narrative, moving toward success in the world.