Doesn’t look like something MAGA folk would like, does it?
Photo: Lindsey Wasson/Reuters
On Thursday, the United States government is pausing its ongoing transformation into the sharp instrument of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement to close for Juneteenth. June 19 has been a federal holiday since 2021, when Joe Biden signed legislation designating it as a day to commemorate the abolition of slavery in the U.S.
It feels somewhat anomalous that Juneteenth has survived Trump’s return to power. After all, one of the executive orders the 47th president signed on Inauguration Day was titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” It made no bones about labeling diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives as “illegal and immoral discrimination” and banning them throughout the federal government. The next day Trump signed another executive order titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” This one abolished any vestige of government-supported affirmative action and instructed the Justice Department to prosecute anyone promoting DEI practices under civil-rights laws.
These orders were just the beginning, of course. Throughout initial stages of the second Trump administration, enormous resources have been devoted to wiping DEI policies or anything like them off the face of the earth. The broader purpose, particularly when viewed in conjunction with widespread administration efforts to kill public subsidies for books or instruction dwelling on America’s history of racism, is to end race-specific policies and even discussions in favor of an antiseptic “merit-based” or “color-blind” society free of the phantom menace of discrimination against white people.
Given the context, Juneteenth stands out like a sore thumb in the eye to MAGA folk, particularly given the holiday’s recent association with the hated Joe Biden. So why is it surviving?
It’s possible that President Trump has largely forgotten about Juneteenth, since he didn’t even know about it until he almost literally stumbled upon it during his first term. In 2020, he scheduled a reelection campaign rally for June 19 and then learned of the date’s significance, as he told The Wall Street Journal at the time:
[A] black Secret Service agent told him the meaning of Juneteenth as the president was facing criticism for initially planning to hold his first campaign rally in three months on the day.
The rally is scheduled to be held in Tulsa, Okla., where, in 1921, a mob of white residents attacked and killed black community members, destroying a thriving black business district.
Holding a rally on that day, particularly as racial protests continued throughout the country, was insensitive, African-American leaders told Mr. Trump. He eventually pushed the rally back a day to June 20.
“I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous,” Mr. Trump said, referring to news coverage of the rally date. “It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it.”
Trump subsequently included a pledge to make Juneteenth a federal holiday in the fine-print details of a 2020 campaign document designed to appeal to Black voters, which is probably why he hasn’t hastened to get rid of it in 2025.
Juneteenth also falls into a loophole in his war on race-conscious policies or utterances. A February 5 Justice Department memo clarified that Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders do “not prohibit educational, cultural, or historical observances — such as Black History Month, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or similar events — that celebrate diversity, recognize historical contributions, and promote awareness without engaging in exclusion or discrimination.” This qualifier appeared a few days after Trump re-commemorated February as Black History Month in a proclamation, though his understanding of the sweep of Black history was a mite suspect:
Throughout our history, black Americans have been among our country’s most consequential leaders, shaping the cultural and political destiny of our Nation in profound ways. American heroes such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Thomas Sowell, Justice Clarence Thomas, and countless others represent what is best in America and her citizens.
Ranking Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell (a Black conservative economist who is probably about as familiar to most Black people as Juneteenth was to Trump in 2020) right up there with Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman is a pretty good indication that Trump and his supporters are mostly interested in us hearing Black voices that agree with them. It will be interesting to see how the 47th president marks Juneteenth this week, if he says anything at all.
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