Trump Used Juneteenth to Gain Black Votes, Now Attacking Black History in 'Woke' Purge

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Back in September 2020, then-President Donald Trump — ever the showman — made a bold pitch to Black voters: he would make Juneteenth a federal holiday. It was part of his glossy “Platinum Plan,” which also promised to prosecute the KKK as a terrorist organization, increase capital access in Black communities, and invest $500 billion in jobs.

“No president has done more for the Black community,” Trump declared, with his signature flair for self-promotion and a shrug to the historical record.

He even took credit for “making Juneteenth famous” after scheduling a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma — on June 19th, of all dates — only to reschedule after a national outcry. “I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous,” he told The Wall Street Journal , as if the day recognizing emancipation hadn’t existed until he saw a way to exploit it politically.

Juneteenth is more than a symbolic day off—it’s one of the rare cultural markers that encourages Americans to reckon with slavery and its lingering impact. It honors not just the end of bondage, but also the slow, uneven journey toward equity. In many ways, DEI efforts are rooted in a similar impulse: a messy, sometimes flawed attempt to address systems built without marginalized voices in mind.

DEI has, at times, gone too far. Even well-meaning initiatives have stumbled into corporate box-checking and confusing, patronizing messaging. Attempts to right historical wrongs have occasionally devolved into performative absurdity or even weaponized identity politics. It’s the nature of things: pendulums never swing back to the middle.  There’s room for a reasonable critique and reset.

But Trump’s pivot isn’t about moderation. It’s about demolition. Juneteenth and DEI share DNA: they’re both attempts, in different forms, to reckon with buried truths and bring equity to institutions built without Black Americans in mind.

But in Trump’s world, consistency is optional. Now in his second term in the White House, Trump has repositioned himself not as a bridge builder, but as the battering ram against what he calls “woke tyranny.” The man who once paid lip service to civil rights history no seems hellbent in undermining its tough lessons.

During the 2024 campaign rallies and in stump speeches, Trump consistently railed against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, casting them as “un-American” and “a sickness.” In a 2024 campaign video, he pledged to “eliminate all DEI programs from the federal government” and called them “Marxist training sessions” that “indoctrinate our children and divide our country.” He’s mocked corporate DEI efforts too, linking them to military failures and airline delays — as if racial equity pilots jets.

During a March 2024 Fox News appearance, Trump criticized the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture for focusing too much on slavery and systemic racism, saying, “They make it all about how terrible this country is. No wonder young people are confused.”

He’s also promised a return to “patriotic education,” which sounds less like civic pride and more like enforced amnesia. One wonders what happened to the guy who said Juneteenth was “really important”—until it wasn’t.

The truth is, Trump didn’t change his principles. He never had any. Like most politicians, he’s an opportunist—but he’s better at it. Or just more shameless. His sudden war on DEI isn’t grounded in philosophy; it’s reactive bluster shaped by whatever his base is shouting that week. Juneteenth was a gesture, nothing more. Today’s crusade against equity is just another performance—louder, angrier, and entirely on brand.

The post Trump Exploited Juneteenth To Peel Off Black Votes — Now He’s Assailing Black History In DEI-‘Woke’ Purge first appeared on Crypto Scope Daily .