WATCH: Rep. Pressley questions American history professor in Smithsonian oversight hearing

[00:00:00]you Our shared American history, are shared American history is under attack. Donald Trump is working overtime to turn our museums into instruments of maga propaganda rather than places where American people and visitors from around the world can encounter our factual history. I had the privilege this weekend visiting the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, a Smithsonian affiliate and uh and what I, I took in there was factual. It was powerful. It was equal parts devastating and also instructive.

[00:00:38]which is why people are working so hard to erase it. and let me just be clear, try as you might to erase black history into a race black people, you cannot erase us but I digress. The work of our museums is so very important uh. Doctor Harige, that work deserves visibility, gratitude, protection, not vilification and threats. Since taking office, the Trump administration has become synonymous with fascism. While there's no one set definition historians have generally agreed upon several characteristics. Dr. Blight, you were selected to be the president of the Society of American Historians, so I'm going to ask you to keep me honest on this. Now, what I've learned is that fascism usually includes elements like undermining fair elections. a constant targeting of vulnerable people and labeling them as enemies, and an overwhelming amount of government corruption. Sounds eerily familiar, a damning and devastating deja vu of the moment we find ourselves in right now. The element I want to focus on today is the fascist hostility to our history, academia, museums, and the arts. Doctor Bly, looking at history, why do fascists and autocrats attack cultural institutions like museums.

[00:01:55]Madam Congressman, it's because they believe that's where you can control people's minds. You can sustain a social order.

[00:02:04]You can control education. You can control the arts, you can control writing and creativity itself. It is not just the Nazis. There have been plenty of other neo-fascist or fascist regimes that have attempted to do that. Thank you, Doctor. Yeah, this is, this is anti-freedom agenda. They want to control what books we read, uh, what is in our museums, what we do with our bodies, attack the free press, degrade free speech. It's an anti-freedom agenda. Doctor Bligh, what warning signs do you look for when society starts drifting towards fascism and authoritarianism. First, I look for the breakup of political parties. Then I look for this kind of assault. on cultural institutions, on things like the National Park Service, which reaches more students than any of us who teach in universities. I look for attempts to control the media, which is the dissemination of knowledge and I look for any attempt at the control over free minds, free speech, freedom itself. Thank you. History gives us a chilling example of what happens when a government decides that it alone will define what counts as good art and acceptable history. I've heard the stories passed down in Jewish families of Germany in the 1930s as the Nazi regime consolidated political power. It turned his attentions to museums and to galleries. The regime started with criticism labeling art as degenerate and claiming it didn't fit with the national culture, but then they started attacking museum directors and curators and eventually art pieces were confiscated from museums and locked away or sold in 19 39 Nazis publicly burned thousands of paintings that they couldn't profit from. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum details much of this history. Fascist attacks on museums are not just about history. Today, the occupant of the White House labels entire aspects of American history as quote unquote divisive and uses the power of his office to pressure the Smithsonian to remove, whitewash, and to rewrite our stories. I'm not here to exaggerate, just to educate, and what is spurring this all on? What fuels this?

[00:04:18]Fear of a black planet fear of a multiracial democracy. The occupant of the Oval Office, Project 2025, this cult of MAGA, they are fueled by fear and hate.

[00:04:33]Doctor Bly, when people see the warning signs that you mentioned, why is it important that they speak up and take action.

[00:04:39]Uh, well, it's important because if the people don't stand up they lose these institutions, and as you just suggested, the black world came to America for the World Cup. Uh, I wonder if, uh, I wonder if people noticed that the world is black and brown. and the teams from European countries wear black and brown.

[00:05:00]And uh we ought to take some lesson from that. And by the way, to that point earlier, sorry, that uh they were getting disinformation. Well, who are they getting the disinformation from and uh let's remember what fascinates the world about America is our contradictions. Your time's up, fascinating.

[00:05:21]Thank you. I'm sorry. Your