Margaret Mitchell was born in 1900, a quarter century after the beginning and subsequently abrupt end of Reconstruction.

She was a privileged daughter in a wealthy and politically prominent Atlanta family at the height of The Lost Cause myth, which argued that the South’s involvement in the Civil War was about states’ rights and heroism, not slavery.

At the Atlanta History Center’s Margaret Mitchell House, which celebrates the life and career of the “Gone With the Wind” author, a display in her own words, reads: “I heard everything in the world except that the Confederates lost the war. When I was 10 years old, it was a violent shock to learn that General Lee had been defeated.”

“She grew up with the unquestionable belief that the South had won,” said Jill Savitt, CEO of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. “If we look at the playbook, especially from white Southerners during the Reconstruction period, this is entirely consistent. And now we see it playing out again.”

Last week, in an executive order aimed at the Smithsonian Institution, the nation’s massive museum system, President Donald Trump looked to tighten his grip on cultural and artistic institutions by attacking what he calls “improper ideology.”

Trump called for an end to spending on Smithsonian exhibitions or programs that “degrade shared American values, divide Americans by race or promote ideologies inconsistent with federal law.”

Ironically, the order also seeks a federal review of Confederate statues and monuments that were taken down in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd murder.

Critics see it as an extension of Trump’s attacks on DEI programs and claim that he is trying to erase the achievements and contributions of maligned groups like African Americans, while ignoring their collective history and the current educational, political, economic and legal hurdles they face.

“This is an assault on Black history,” said Samuel Livingston, an Africana studies professor at Morehouse College. “This regime is not interested in telling an accurate story. But you cannot tell the story of America without the story of white supremacy. They want to create a false narrative of what it means to be an American.”

Trump’s reach — while broad — only touches the federal government, and many of the museums that contain some of the more disturbing parts of history are funded by state and local governments or privately funded.

Neither the Atlanta History Center nor the Atlanta-based National Center for Civil and Human Rights, will be directly affected by the executive order, as they do not receive federal funding.

“We are very much a museum that tells the story about the potential for American greatness. We’re not going to go picking fights with anybody, but we’re not going to back away from living out our mission,” said Savitt. “Otherwise, what’s the point of having a National Center for Civil and Human Rights? If we don’t tell the story that we were founded to tell, there’s no reason to have it.”

On a recent private tour of the Buckhead facility, Sheffield Hale, president and CEO of the Atlanta History Center, took visitors deep into the archives, through the library, café and bookstore, and behind the Cyclorama.

In the room where artifacts are stored, he laughed and smiled while showing off Civil War rifles and bayonets, ancient restaurant signs and a giant old globe, unique in the fact that after decades of being touched by children, the state of Georgia has been erased.

Upstairs in the permanent and special exhibits, he chats with parents of screaming and happy children playing in the Goizueta Children’s Experience, a new interactive learning and playroom.

“Nothing will change,” Hale said of the center, which will mark a century in 2026. “Museums are said to be some of the most trusted places to get your information, and we’re trying to retain that trust.”

He is standing in front of one of Hank Aaron’s jerseys. Behind him is a snare drum emblazoned with a Ku Klux Klan symbol.

Speaking specifically about the Smithsonian, in his executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” Trump claims that the nation museum system’s telling of America’s history is “racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”

He added that the 175-year-old institution, which receives nearly two-thirds of its $1 billion budget from the federal government and attracts more than 17 million people annually to its 21 museums, libraries, research centers and the National Zoo, had “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology” and promotes “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”

Historians, scholars and museum officials throughout Atlanta and the South fear that while the executive order specifically targets the Smithsonian it could have sweeping ramifications beyond those facilities and alter the way American history has been taught and digested for decades.

Historians say that, like during post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow, the impact of the executive order could manifest in textbooks being altered to appeal to more conservative school districts, museums being reluctant to address certain issues and states strongly opposing the removal or reclassification of Confederate monuments outside of federal control.

“I am deeply concerned that it will take generations to rebuild what’s being torn down right now,” said Calinda Lee, the president of Sources Cultural Resources Management, and a former executive at both the Atlanta History Center and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. “It takes a long time to construct a building. But you blow it up in a matter of minutes.”

Karen Cox, a retired university professor and author of “No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice,” said the new executive order is a validation of Confederate ideology and nationalism.

“But he’s going to get away with it,” she said of Trump’s march through history. “He’s just running roughshod over all of our institutions — educational, government, health, medical. In the brief time he’s been in office, the damage that has been done may take another generation to undo.”

Trump’s order aimed at the Smithsonian was his latest move to remake the country’s art, culture and history.

In February, he elected himself chair of the board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, while purging its previously bipartisan board of former President Joe Biden appointees.

On Monday, in a move that almost went unnoticed in the flurry of activity coming out of Washington, Trump placed the staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services on administrative leave, setting the stage for potentially ending the main source of federal support for the country’s museums and libraries.

That follows a January executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs at organizations receiving federal money. Trump banned some federal agencies from celebrating Black History Month, while holding an event at the White House.

But it is unclear how the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016 to great fanfare, will fare.

In his order, Trump specifically criticized the Smithsonian’s newest facility saying it had “proclaimed that ‘hard work,’ ‘individualism,’ and ‘the nuclear family’ are aspects of ‘White culture,‘” as part of a 2020 online educational portal, which described 14 categories of “white dominant culture, or whiteness,” including history, religion, family structure and justice. The graphic was quickly removed after drawing criticism.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that Kevin Young, an acclaimed poet who was named director of the museum in 2021, is on personal leave for an “undetermined period.” Young previously taught English and creative writing at Atlanta’s Emory University.

Averaging more than a million visitors annually, it is one of the Smithsonian’s most popular museums, and chronicles the advent of American chattel slavery through the lingering impact of Jim Crow segregation and the Civil Rights Era.

It also highlights how African Americans have successfully contributed to the American fabric through scientific achievements, military heroism and groundbreaking works of art and music ranging from the poetry of Langston Hughes to the music of Parliament-Funkadelic, whose iconic “Mothership” is on display.

In a message to Smithsonian staff following the order, Lonnie G. Bunch III, the current secretary of the institution and founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, said: “We remain steadfast in our mission to bring history, science, education, research, and the arts to all Americans. We will continue to showcase world-class exhibits, collections, and objects, rooted in expertise and accuracy.”

Two new museums, the American Women’s History Museum and the National Museum of the American Latino, were authorized by Congress in 2020 and are still in development.

“Black history is U.S. history. Women’s history is U.S. history,” said Margaret Huang, president and CEO, Southern Poverty Law Center. “This country’s history is ugly and beautiful. And each historic struggle for civil rights has advanced our movement toward a truly inclusive, multiracial democracy.”

Last Wednesday, Livingston, the Morehouse professor, walked two of his students through the school’s Hall of Honor. On the top floor of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel, the hall features more than 150 oil portraits of Black leaders including Jesse Jackson, Barack Obama, Rosa Parks, Maynard Jackson, Raphael Warnock, Andrew Young and Oprah Winfrey.

Livingston, who has taught at Morehouse, the nation’s only institution for Black men, for 22 years, said it is going to take people like his students to step up and change the narrative and resist Trump’s attempt to “blanch out the Black part of American history.”

Recently, for the first time in Morehouse’s history, one of their students was awarded a Smithsonian internship.

“The conversations that I have with all my students are the same as they were before the current regime,” Livingston said. “Do your homework, be thorough in your reading, stay in touch with your community and make sure your research is informed by Black voices.”

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