The Purge: Black Leaders, Black Workers, Black History and Trump’s Remaking of America

By Stacy M. Brown

Senior Global Correspondent

Donald Trump’s second presidency is littered with the firing of Black leaders, the dismantling of civil rights protections, the gutting of federal jobs that helped build the Black middle class, attacks on Black history and diversity programs, and even the public circulation of racist imagery depicting America’s first Black president and first lady as apes.

Critics across government, civil rights organizations, academia, and the media say the pattern is no accident.

“It’s not just posturing and messaging that validates and excites the worst bigots in the country (though it’s that too), but we’re now about 16 months into a concerted and intense targeting of Black Americans by the Trump administration,” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said during a recent broadcast examining Trump’s policies and personnel decisions.

Maddow said it’s obvious that Trump isn’t hiding his true intent. She pointed to Trump’s war on diversity programs, the firing of Black officials across federal agencies, and the rollback of anti-discrimination protections that had existed for decades.

“On his first day in office, the president proclaimed war on diversity efforts, not only in government, but in any institution in the country over which he can exert leverage, from schools to law firms to private businesses of every stripe,” Maddow said.

The administration moved quickly. Trump fired Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the second Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nation’s highest-ranking military officer. Before Brown’s removal, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly attacked him for what he described as a “woke” focus on diversity initiatives and openly questioned whether Brown had been promoted because he was Black.

Brown, a decorated fighter pilot and four-star general, was replaced by Gen. Dan Caine, a white officer with significantly less national visibility and completely without the credentials of Brown.

The purge spread across the federal government. Carla Hayden, the first Black person and first woman ever to serve as Librarian of Congress, was fired by text message. Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman on the National Labor Relations Board, was removed. Alvin Brown of the National Transportation Safety Board was terminated. Robert Primus of the Surface Transportation Board was forced out. Willie Phillips, the first Black chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, was pressured from office. Trump also sought to remove Lisa Cook, the first Black woman on the Federal Reserve Board.

The New York Times reported that only two of Trump’s 98 Senate-confirmed appointees during his first 200 days back in office were Black. “Trump seemed to be very proud to have ‘Blacks for Trump’ at all of his rallies and behind the podium, but not behind him in the cabinet meetings,” said Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. “When we’re not in the room, things don’t tend to go better for us.”

Some of the removed officials now allege racial discrimination.

Bloomberg Law reported that Alvin Brown filed suit accusing the administration of targeting Black officials at independent agencies. According to the complaint, attorneys argued that 75% of Black officials serving at independent federal agencies had been fired under Trump.

“President Trump has removed Black Senate-confirmed appointees; he has either nominated a non-Black individual for their replacement or has not formally replaced them at all,” Brown’s attorneys wrote. “This trend fits with President Trump’s consistent messaging criticizing diversity and inclusion. ”Robert Primus, who Trump himself originally appointed during his first term, told The New York Times that the pattern had become impossible to ignore.

“Maybe he felt that this job was not intended for Blacks,” Primus said. “It’s legitimate speculation. Because if you look across the board, there is a pattern.” Maddow connected the administration’s actions to one of the darkest periods in federal history. Reporter Erica Green, Maddow noted, found that “nothing had moved backward in the federal government for Black Americans this quickly or this far in more than 100 years — since 1912, when President Woodrow Wilson resegregated the federal workforce.”

Maddow then described how Black workers during the Wilson era were “humiliated,” citing reports of a Black postal employee being “surrounded by screens so white workers would not have to look at him,” while another had “a cage built around him to separate him from his white counterparts.”

“But in 2025 and 2026,” Maddow said, “this president and this administration are not just inheriting that history, they’re furthering it.”

The administration’s policies have also landed directly on Black workers.

Black unemployment climbed to 7.3% in April while the national unemployment rate remained steady at 4.3%, according to federal labor data. Economists tied the increase to Trump’s dismantling of the federal workforce, where Black Americans have historically relied on stable government jobs after decades of discrimination in the private sector.

Gbenga Ajilore, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, noted that the federal government had shed 342,000 jobs since Trump returned to office. “It’s just massive,” Ajilore said. The Center for American Progress warned that the administration’s cuts were striking directly at the Black middle class, especially in places like Prince George’s County, Maryland, where federal employment has long provided Black families with homeownership, retirement security, healthcare, and upward mobility.

The administration’s attacks have also extended into history, education, and public memory. Congressman Bennie Thompson accused Trump of targeting Black America itself by removing Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, attacking the National Museum of African American History and Culture, removing Black historical figures from federal websites, and targeting diversity programs connected to HBCUs and public education.

“Black Americans have worked hard and sacrificed for generations,” Thompson said. “One man can’t silence our voice or erase our legacy.” The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights documented sweeping reversals of anti-discrimination protections, racial equity initiatives, voting safeguards, and civil rights enforcement.

Among the most alarming changes was the administration’s rollback of federal contracting language explicitly prohibiting segregated facilities. NPR, cited in Maddow’s reporting, noted that the federal government now “no longer explicitly prohibits contractors from having segregated restaurants, waiting rooms, and drinking fountains.”

At the same time, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced blistering questioning from lawmakers on Capitol Hill over cuts and restructuring plans critics say will fall hardest on Black communities already suffering disproportionate rates of maternal mortality, chronic illness, food insecurity, and inadequate healthcare access.

Democratic lawmakers pressed Kennedy over staffing cuts, reductions to public health outreach, and the dismantling of programs communities of color depend upon. Kennedy defended the moves as “streamlining” government operations and reducing bureaucracy, insisting essential services would continue despite the cuts.

For critics, the administration’s actions form a single picture.

The Center for Progressive Reform compared Trump’s policies to historic white backlash campaigns that followed Black advancement after Reconstruction, during Jim Crow segregation, and throughout decades of voter suppression, redlining, and racial violence.

“Attempts by Trump to freeze federal funding, close federal agencies, curb the rights of workers, and dismiss federal workers,” the organization wrote, “continue a shameful tradition in American history of systematically dehumanizing, disenfranchising, and stealing from Black Americans.”