WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a speech at the National Archives, President Donald Trump announced that he will sign an executive order establishing a “national commission to promote patriotic education” which will be known as the “1776 Commission.”
The goal of the commission, Trump said, will be to encourage educators to teach students “about the miracle of American history.”
Earlier in Trump’s speech, he attacked Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project, calling it “toxic propaganda” and “ideological poison that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together.”
He touted that he recently banned trainings on what he called the “prejudiced ideology” of Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project. Previously, he referred to those trainings as “propaganda.”
“It has come to the President’s attention that Executive Branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date ‘training’ government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda,” stated a memo released by Office of Management and Budget, which was sent earlier this month to the heads of federal agencies.
Trump said that it is “so urgent” to “restore patriotic education to our schools” and announced that the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded a grant to “support the development of a pro-American curriculum that celebrates the truth about our nation’s great history.”
“The only path to national unity is through our shared identity as Americans,” Trump said.
Nikole Hannah-Jones was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for The 1619 Project, which they called a “groundbreaking exploration of the legacy of Black Americans starting with the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in 1619.”
