President Trump, who famously complains about cancel culture, tried to cancel me last week.
The Trump administration’s push to silence celebrations of racial diversity led to one of my books, a New York Times bestseller, being removed from the library of the U.S. Naval Academy.
My book got caught in a wide net that dragged in more than 300 books by prominent authors, including Maya Angelou, T.S. Elliot, and William Faulkner.
I also want to point out that, on the dust jacket of this book, you will see endorsements by celebrated conservative thinkers such as Thomas Sowell, John McWhorter, and Glenn Loury.
And read the book’s title: “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America — and What We Can Do About It.” Many on the Black far-left objected to this as a criticism of their agenda.
Bill O’Reilly, a leading conservative voice, had me on his top-rated Fox News show to discuss the book. He praised its thesis.
I am the author of ten books, and “Enough” stands out to this day as one of two that was widely championed by conservatives and embraced by Fox News viewers.
On tour this month for my latest book, “New Prize for These Eyes: the Rise of America’s Second Civil Rights Movement,” self-identified conservatives, some telling me they are Trump supporters, mentioned how much they enjoyed ‘Enough’ — nineteen years after it was first published. And the conservative enthusiasm is understandable. The book is a critique of the failure of top Black leaders to protest bad schools, drug dealers, hip-hop celebrations of the “N”-word, and insulting depictions of Black women.
I made the case that too many Black politicians and activists had abandoned the core mission of the Black rights movement, going back to the 1800s, to improve the lives of black people. What happened, I asked to a stand for strong families, strong education and a strong work ethic.
‘Enough,’ argues that many black leaders, from Jesse Jackson to Al Sharpton, appeared focused on gaining political power and making financial deals while ignoring the shocking decay in too many black communities.
This was particularly true, I said, in big cities where the term “urban” had become tragically synonymous with blighted black neighborhoods suffering with violent crime, drug abuse, dysfunctional “Gangsta” rap culture, failing schools, and hostility toward charter and religious schools.
The book was praised across political lines in 2006 as surprising testimony coming from a Black Democrat known for writing op-eds and TV-radio commentaries urging leading Republicans (at the time President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney) to do more to expand the Republican base among socially conservative Blacks and Latinos looking for answers.
That thesis proved prescient in 2024 with a rising number of blacks and Latinos willing to vote Republican — even for Trump — to protest the status quo of working-class life in troubled neighborhoods.
Controversy about free speech on politically sensitive subjects is a storm I know all too well. NPR fired me years ago for saying on Fox News that I got nervous, immediately after the September 11 attacks, at the sight of people in Muslim garb boarding an airplane. By acknowledging my personal fears, I was pointing out the need for honest debate at a time of crisis. I made the case for tolerance and for avoiding fearmongering, and discrimination against Muslims.
Now the canceling is coming from the right, with Trump trying to censor my book out of existence. Why?
My guess is that the censors didn’t read the book. They just saw the name of a black author critical of the administration and yanked it off the shelf. Censor first, ask questions later — or not at all.
It is this same incompetent “ready-fire-aim” attitude that caused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to order the removal of a website citation praising the military service of Jackie Robinson, the first Black Major League Baseball Player. They later restored the web page.
The same stupidity applied to whitewashing the Tuskegee Airmen out of existence on an Air Force website. Under pressure from Republican politicians, the Defense Department restored the Tuskegee Airmen to history.
Trump’s war on diversity also led to the temporary scrubbing of references to the Enola Gay, the U.S. aircraft used to drop the atomic bomb on Japan during World War II. Censors foolishly thought the word “Gay” was a sexual reference or endorsement.
Recently, following Trump’s dictates, the National Park Service scrubbed a picture of Harriet Tubman with a webpage that told the story of the Underground Railroad. The page shifted its focus to interracial “cooperation,” among whites and freed black slaves. Even the Trump administration agreed that that madness had to be undone.
We are witnessing a mindless assault on the history of race in America by Trump acolytes — a cancelling of American history from the far-right.
But even a president can’t ban the truth. He can’t ban reality. Smart people will find their way to what is true and real and shame those selling ignorance.
We are a nation born of revolution. The greatest gift of our founders remains the right to speak out, write articles, and read books.
Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a prize-winning civil rights historian. He is the author of the new book “New Prize for these Eyes: the Rise of America’s Second Civil Rights Movement.”
