By Alice T. Crowe
Crews equipped with crowbars dismantled an exhibit at Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia on Jan. 22. The panels removed honored the lives of nine people enslaved by George Washington.
Under a Federal directive, staff were to take down information that “disparages” American icons and fosters national shame. The take-down of the exhibit looked more like the removal of evidence at a crime scene than a safety measure to prevent an attack on patriotism.
Fortunately, Philadelphia is now suing the federal government. This action goes beyond regular park maintenance; it is part of a larger, organized effort to erase the truth about the Black experience in America. Erasing Black history from walls won’t erase it from reality. Suppressing truth only amplifies it.
Black history doesn’t need permission to exist. It speaks its unwavering truth no matter who it offends. The coordinated efforts by erasure agents to dismantle monuments, pull books from shelves, rewrite curricula, water down content or spread disinformation about slavery and Jim Crow won’t stop the truth. Anti-woke watchdogs can ban all discussions in classrooms throughout America about redlining and unfair housing, but they can’t make the segregated neighborhoods that redlining maps created disappear.
History won’t stay silent. It lives in the hearts and spirits of people. Gatekeepers can remove books by Octavia Butler, Maya Angelou or W.E.B. Dubois’ Black Reconstruction from the shelves. Still, they can’t erase the lived experiences of millions of Black Americans whose stories will be passed down. They can’t erase the memory of those who have told their stories for decades. They can’t dismiss the stories that prove what Whitewashing can’t erase.
Stories like that of Claudette Colvin, at age 15, arrested in 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks, for refusing to give up her seat to a White woman on a segregated Montgomery bus. Her courage in defying Jim Crow laws helped fuel the modern Civil Rights Movement. Gatekeepers can’t silence the decades-long voice of Viola Fletcher, who was one of the oldest living survivors of the massacre that took place in the Black section of Tulsa, Okla. in 1921. Fletcher died at age 111 on Nov. 24, 2025. She lived and remembered the horrific acts of domestic terrorism wielded by an angry mob of White residents that descended on the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Okla., burning and looting homes and businesses in the thriving majority-Black neighborhood, known as “Black Wall Street.”
Anti-woke watchdogs may try to sanitize history by calling lessons about enslavement, segregation, or stories that show Black pride “divisive” concepts. But when has America ever truly been united? Jim Crow laws made it legal to separate people in this country. Ignoring that history does not change it. In fact, Jim Crow influenced Apartheid in South Africa and policies in Nazi Germany, helping to divide those societies as well.
The irony is that the more books are banned or exhibits are removed, the more these acts underscore the importance of Black history. People are more driven to tell stories and expose the truth. No amount of woofle dust can make the actual lived experiences of Black people in America disappear. We need the truth. How else will we get to reconciliation and advance reparatory justice?
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.