In an executive order titled, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” Donald Trump took direct aim at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, (“NMAAHC”) among other Smithsonian museums. The NMAAHC is dedicated to accurately documenting our history and cultural contributions to America. The museum—the fourth most visited of the 21 national museums —is being specifically called out for supposedly promoting “improper ideology.”

For the nearly 1.4 million Americans that visit this popular museum every year, and the millions more who were forever changed by their experience of it, this proclamation is probably baffling. What could possibly be improper about a museum that chronicles the good, the bad and the ugly in African American history, much of it largely untold or excluded from standard renditions of our textbooks? From the Transatlantic slave trade that stole hundreds of millions of Africans from their homes to force them to labor in the Americas to their struggles over the centuries to become full and equal citizens of the United States, the museum provides a soul-stirring journey of the trials and aspirations of African Americans. It leaves beyond a shadow of a doubt that African-American history is American history.

Yet, this encounter with the African-American experience and the complex emotions it stirs appear to be precisely the improprieties that bring these stories into the crosshairs of the Trump administration’s war on “woke.” The executive order targeting the NMAAHC is part of Trump’s wide-ranging assault on ideas and institutions that have become forbidden as divisive and anti-American.

Already we have seen how Trump’s assault on diversity, equity and inclusion has constituted a particularly devastating toll on African American leadership, employment, wellbeing and memory. The purging of the federal workforce has been disproportionately borne by Black civil servants, and the undermining of institutions like the Department of Education threaten to reverse the promises of Brown v. Board of Education.

Trump’s firing frenzy swept up Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.—chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the highest ranking African American in the military—for allegedly affirming the reality of racial profiling.

Government programs and grants that address Black wellbeing ranging from maternal mortality to environmental racism have been rescinded. The anti-woke campaign has claimed casualties in memory as well, including the temporary erasure of the Tuskegee Airmen from the Navy training materials, the deletion of Harriet Tubman in the National Park Services materials on the Underground Railroad, and the erasure of Jackie Robinson’s monumental achievements from the Department of Defense website. While these most egregious erasures were rescinded after a spontaneous backlash, countless other erasures have proceeded with no relief.

This month, the Museum of African American History in Boston, which includes the African Meeting House where abolitionists like Frederick Douglass spoke, was told they were losing a three-year federal grant. Why? Because, according to officials, the grant “no longer serves the interest of the United States and the furtherance of the President’s policies.”

Just last month, the Naval Academy removed hundreds of books for allegedly reflecting “improper ideology.” Gone are “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” and studies on the Ku Klux Klan and lynching. What remains on the shelves of the Naval Academy? Adolph Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” and Charles Murray’s “The Bell Curve,” a modern eugenist track that brought scientific racism back into polite political conversation.

One needn’t speculate about the line that determines which books fall on the “proper” side of acceptability and what is not in Trumpland. He says as much in the executive order, taking aim at a Smithsonian exhibit that debunks the idea that race is real rather than something made-up to justify White supremacy.

To the uninformed, race and its supposed differences in intelligence, morality and work ethic may appear to be real unless the history of how it was created, embedded and reinforced is told. And unless the story of how ordinary African Americans have always resisted its implications, the reality that nothing is fixed but bendable through collective action and moral suasion is lost. This is the story that the NMAAHC does so beautifully. And this is also why the administration has set its sights on disabling it.

Make no mistake: this is neither a gesture towards colorblindness nor a tribute to national unity. In the same breath that Trump critiques the telling of enslavement, segregation, and Black resistance, he has been unequivocal in calling for the return and protection of monuments that honor the Confederacy. Apparently, in Trumpland, the violent faction that took up arms to hold African Americans in perpetual servitude deserves honor while those who struggled and sacrificed to make real the promise of “liberty and justice for all” do not.

In a nutshell, policing this boundary between honoring and critiquing an ignoble past is what “improper ideology” boils down to.

The attempt to erase Black history, Black voices and Black culture is an attempt to erase Black lives. Now is the time to stand up for civil rights, for the accurate accounting of history, for our books, our voices and our lives. From the majestic Smithsonian to your local library, we must galvanize the country to say with one voice: “Hands Off Our History.”

The urgency of this moment has prompted racial justice organizations, faith leaders, teachers, historians, fraternities and sororities, unions and countless others to come together in a week of activities to demand the Freedom to Learn. From April 27 to May 4 we will highlight the urgent need to defend Black history, the importance of safeguarding physical sites of Black commemoration, and the connection between the assault on our knowledge and the undermining of our democracy. We encourage everyone to do their part—visit a museum, engage social media, write letters to the editor, and on May 3, stand up at the NMAAHC and everywhere else where memory is curated and safeguarded.

outline why we must robustly defend our freedom to learn Black history if we hope to save our democracy.

We’ve heard it said that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. But today, we’re confronted with a more disturbing reality: Those who would erase the past are intending to repeat it. It is up to all of us to stop them by saying .#HandsOffOurHistory.