20 October 2025
(Black Press USA) — A coordinated, nationwide campaign is underway to erase, distort, and suppress Black history, health, education, and opportunity in America.
Covering January through August 2025, Onyx Impact’s new report, Blackout: The Real-World Cost of Erasing, Distorting, and Suppressing Black Progress, describes a broad strategy that reaches into classrooms, government databases, and funding streams to reshape what the public sees and remembers.
The numbers demand attention:
• 1,362 cases of erasure (including 591 books banned)
• 14,072 cases of distortion (including 6,769 dataset removals and 2,188 funding restrictions)
• 289 cases of suppression–pressuring government agencies, institutions, and individuals into silence
• $3.4 billion in grants and research for Black communities, entrepreneurs, and HBCUs slashed
• $9.4 million in Sickle Cell Disease grants cut in a condition where 90 percent of U.S. patients are Black
• $68.5 million in flood prevention for Black neighborhoods, $31.5 million in asthma and air quality programs that help Black children, and $23.7 million in clean water and lead exposure prevention gutted
This is not just about erasing historical figures
When datasets on health, the environment, and education disappear, so does the proof of historical harm and current disparities. When funding for flood prevention and asthma relief is slashed, Black neighborhoods are hit first – but the ripple effects weaken public health, economic stability, and civic trust for everyone. Black children are already 60 percent more likely to suffer from asthma and two to three times more likely to be hospitalized. Decades of redlining mean Black families face the highest flood risks; now, the protections are being stripped away.
“Black history is American history. For generations, Black communities have been the bedrock of this country’s progress – and that’s exactly why bad actors target our stories and our data,” said Esosa Osa, Executive Director of Onyx Impact. “What we’re seeing isn’t noise; it’s a coordinated effort to erase, distort, and suppress so the public can’t see the truth or measure the harm. This report puts the receipts in one place so no one can pretend it isn’t happening. This is not a ‘culture war’ – it’s a power grab that threatens the integrity of the record, the fairness of opportunity, and the health of our democracy.”
Alongside the report, Onyx Impact is publishing a public database of verified examples of erasure, distortion, and suppression. A citizen reporting tool will allow readers to submit new incidents for verification and archiving. Knowing that more cuts and erasures are coming, Onyx Impact has launched a fellowship program in partnership with Archiving the Black Web to train media professionals and journalists to archive and extend their knowledge of in-depth research.
About the methodology:
Onyx Impact conducted an open-source research project to explore where the erasure of content related to Black Americans extended in both online and offline spaces.
To perform this task, researchers relied on keyword searches and public news reporting, as well as public databases and reports from PEN America, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Grant Witness, and the Government Information Tracker, among others. Researchers used at least eight public databases tracking legislation, government grants, and book bans. Onyx set up approximately two dozen news alerts and conducted twice-daily manual media monitoring to track examples of state and local parallels to national news stories related to the erasure of Black history, celebrations, research contributions, education, funding cuts, business support, and more.
About Onyx Impact
Onyx Impact is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering Black communities by exposing and countering the information threats that undermine Black progress.
This article originally published in the October 20, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.