Trump Marks Black History Month, Even as He Slams the Value of Diversity

The Black History Month reception held at the White House on Thursday had all of the pomp of celebrations past. Guests sipped champagne and snacked on lamb chops and collard greens. The crowd delighted in their invitations, snapping selfies. And when President Trump walked out alongside one of the greatest Black athletes in the world, Tiger Woods, the crowd roared with their phones in the air.

But the dissonance in the East Room was jarring.

Mr. Trump may have praised the contributions of Black Americans on Thursday, but he has spent the weeks since his inauguration eviscerating federal programs aimed at combating inequality in America. He has suggested that efforts spurred by the civil rights movement had made victims out of white people. He blamed a deadly plane crash over the Potomac River on diversity programs in the Federal Aviation Administration.

On Thursday, Mr. Trump tried to show appreciation to the Black community by extolling those he sees as representative of Black American progress.

“Let me ask you,” Mr. Trump said as he began his remarks, “is there anybody like our Tiger?”

Mr. Trump and Mr. Woods are actively engaged in negotiations in search of a lucrative golf merger deal, and the president referred to Mr. Woods repeatedly during his roughly 20-minute address. Mr. Woods wasn’t the only Black athlete to get a shout-out; Mr. Trump also heralded Muhammad Ali and Kobe Bryant.

The president, who made gains with Black voters in 2024, told the crowd of more than 400 guests that “we’re going to work with you.”

During his remarks, Mr. Trump made little reference to issues that have historically plagued the Black community, such as elevated poverty rates, the wage and wealth gap between Black and white Americans, and gun violence. He promised to put statues of Black Americans in a new “National Garden of American Heroes.”

Among those to be honored was Prince Estabrook, an enslaved man and the first Black American to spill blood in the Revolutionary War, along with Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin — and maybe Mr. Woods one day, Mr. Trump said.

The president also used a piece of Black history — the year that the first enslaved Africans arrived in America, which has gained widespread recognition in recent years — to take shots at his political opponents.

“The last administration tried to reduce all of American history to a single year, 1619,” Mr. Trump said. “But under our administration, we honor the indispensable role Black Americans have always played in the immortal cause of another date, 1776.”

The comments highlighted Mr. Trump’s alignment with conservatives who derided a project published by The New York Times called the “1619 Project,” which examined the history of slavery in the United States and explained how America was built on the backs of enslaved people. During his first term, Mr. Trump created the 1776 Commission in response to the project, which he recently resurrected.

Thursday’s event went forward despite rumblings that the White House might choose not to hold a Black History Month celebration this year, as government agencies shuttered such events in light of Mr. Trump’s executive orders.

Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, skirted a question last month about whether the White House planned to mark the occasion. “We will continue to celebrate American history and the contributions that all Americans, regardless of race, religion or creed, have made to our great country,” Ms. Leavitt said.

Mr. Trump’s critics said Thursday’s event was a glaring example of the president celebrating and undermining Black history at the same time.

“This White House celebrating Black history is like asking a cow to serve steak,” said Derrick Johnson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization, which did not receive an invitation to this year’s event.

“He’s holding a celebration at the same time that he’s banning the people from learning about history and civil rights,” Mr. Johnson added. “I’m deeply troubled by the fact that — as the young kids say — he’s playing in our face.”

White House officials have defended Mr. Trump’s crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which were aimed at countering the impact of discriminatory policies faced by women, Black people, people with disabilities and others in minority groups. The administration says the programs are wasteful and amount to reverse discrimination.

Trump administration officials have argued that the orders rolling back D.E.I. efforts were not intended to suppress Black history but to advance racial progress into a “colorblind” society. The administration has also said it is aligning federal policy with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling prohibiting race-conscious admissions practices in colleges.

Just hours before the Black History Month reception, Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff for policy, disparaged D.E.I. policies and said his move against them is among Mr. Trump’s biggest accomplishments in his first month in office.

“This nation has been plagued and crippled by illegal discrimination, diversity, equity and inclusion policies,” Mr. Miller said. “It strangled our economy. It has undermined public safety. It has made every aspect of life more difficult, more painful, and less safe.”

Black Republican leaders in attendance included Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Scott Turner, the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Also in attendance were a number of conservative influencers, including the journalist Sage Steele and the lawyer Leo Terrell. Attendees wore “Make America Great Again” hats of various colors, and one hat was emblazoned with the words “MAGA Black.”

The Rev. Steven Perry, a pastor from Michigan, who supported Mr. Trump after voting for Mr. Biden in 2020, said that he was honored to attend the event. He said that he supported Mr. Trump because he was a leader who followed through on his promises.

“Nobody can take away what we’ve done in this country — it’s evident,” Mr. Perry said of Black Americans. “We’ve got to learn that we got a lot to be proud of, whether somebody acknowledges us or not.”

“We need leaders who help us do what we need to do, not placate our emotions,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s Black Republican supporters have also defended his tactics.

Representative Byron Donalds, Republican of Florida and a stalwart defender of Mr. Trump’s, said in a television interview last month that he took issue with the concept of “equity” that had been the centerpiece of President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s agenda, which he said “puts your demographic criteria at the front of the line before your actual qualifications.”

“I think at the end of the day, everybody wants to make sure that people who are getting jobs are qualified to do them,” Mr. Donalds said. “That is most important. But you can’t put just diversity for diversity’s sake ahead of qualifications. It’s not 1972, it’s 2025, we’re in a different phase in the United States of America.”

Dr. Courtney R. Baker, who attended Biden White House events that included a screening of a movie about Emmett Till, said a single event did not exempt Mr. Trump from civil rights work still needed today. She equated his organizing of a reception celebrating Black History Month to a television series that reserves one episode to explore and solve racism, rather than “attending to the realities of the conditions of African American life.”

“This administration is giving a token acknowledgment to Black life but is very shrewdly, I might say deviously, distancing that from the facts on the ground,” said Dr. Baker, a professor at the University of California, Riverside.

Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said that the event was like “rubbing salt in the wound.”

“What he seems to be celebrating is the support he believes he received from Black supporters, so again, it’s about him, not about us,” Mr. Hewitt said. “It’s like a cruel joke.”