Op-Ed: Some U.S. Leaders Are Erasing Black History – That Threatens Our Future
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Report by nonprofit Onyx Impact’s Blackout Documents 15,723 Examples Shaping National Debate
Op-Ed
“Democracy flourishes when Black Americans advance… In recent years, DEI has been used as a smokescreen to roll back progress and consolidate power.” — The Guardian, op-ed by Stacey Abrams and Esosa Osa, Oct. 22, 2025. Read it here.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Onyx Impact recently released a new, first-of-its-kind report, Blackout: The Real World Cost of Erasing, Distorting, and Suppressing Black Progress, that documents more than 15,000 examples, in less than a year, of the Trump administration directly harming or erasing Black lives, histories, and opportunities.
If you missed the initial coverage, now is the time to see how this data record shows a coordinated pattern: delete the public record, change the inputs that drive policy, and pressure institutions to step back. To date, the report has generated more than one million views on social media in less than a week.
Why This Matters Now
When pages come down, datasets lose race fields, and grant lines close, the public record thins and decision-making shifts. The Blackout Report quantifies the impact:
- 1,362 cases of erasure (including 591 books banned)
- 14,072 cases of distortion (including 6,769 dataset removals and 2,188 funding restrictions)
- 289 cases of suppression–pressuring institutions and individuals into silence
- $3.4 billion in grants and research for Black communities, entrepreneurs, and HBCUs slashed
- $9.4 million in Sickle Cell Disease grants cut in a condition where 90% of U.S. patients are Black
- $68.5 million in flood prevention for Black neighborhoods, $31.5 million in asthma and air quality programs that help Black children, and $23.7 million in clean water and lead exposure prevention gutted
What Makes The Blackout Report Newsworthy
- Evidence at scale: Each example is sourced to public reporting or documentation, with archived snapshots wherever possible.
- Actionable framing: The report surfaces near-term fixes institutions can adopt now, including public change logs, rapid archiving of at-risk pages, and equity in procurement.
- National stakes: Black history is American history; when the record narrows, public health, civic trust, and economic resilience erode for everyone.
Sample Coverage and Commentary
- The Guardian: “The Trump Administration is Erasing Black History and Stifling Black Futures; We Can’t Allow That to Happen” by Esosa Osa and Stacey Abrams.
- The Joy Reid Show: A Moral Monday: Elections, Kings & the Antichrist | The Joy Reid Show LIVE!
- Roland Martin Unfiltered: 15,000 Documented Incidents of Black Progress in America Blotted Out & Erased
Media Call to Action
We invite editors and reporters to dig into the findings and speak with Esosa Osa, Founder and CEO of Onyx Impact, or Kameron Middlebrooks, Deputy Executive Director, about how these trends are reshaping evidence, budgets, and opportunity. To request interviews or tailored data pulls by topic (labor, education, health, environment), reply to this email, and we will coordinate.
Learn More
Onyx Impact is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering Black communities by exposing and countering the information threats that undermine Black progress.
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