America stares down erasure of Black history and progress

In the past year, federal, state and institutional decisions have gutted major pillars of America's civil rights protections and racial equity infrastructure, wiping away public data, slashing research funding and erasing Black history.

Why it matters: Taken together, these moves amount to an unprecedented rollback of civil rights progress, historians say — the largest since Reconstruction.

Zoom in: Effects are piling up. • $3.4 billion in grants for HBCUs, public health research and Black entrepreneurs have been cut or frozen, according to the Blackout Report, from the nonprofit Onyx Impact. • 6,769 federal datasets have been deleted, including those tracking maternal mortality and sickle cell disease, which disproportionately affect Black Americans, per the Blackout report. Also re