Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives has been at the top of his agenda.

He's issued executive orders that target DEI programs, dismantling decades of federal anti-discrimination policy.

For Black History Month, John Yang explores the origins of DEI in America in our latest installment of hidden histories.

Long before DEI became a household term, there were other efforts to move toward equal rights

for all Americans. Some of the earliest were in the late 1800s during the post-Civil War

Reconst reconstruction era.

As southern states enacted Jim Crow laws making segregation in public spaces legal,

Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau.

It provided formerly enslaved people basic necessities,

helped them look for jobs and acquire land of their own.

In 1866, President Andrew Johnson vetoed legislation to enforce those amendments, arguing

that it discriminated against white people.

And pressure from white Southerners led to the closure of the Freedmen's Bureau just seven

years after it had been established.

Nearly a century later, Black Americans were still battling racism and discrimination.

Free!

Rear!

Lead by icons like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., they united during the Civil Rights

Movement, pushing back against the systems that excluded them.

At the height of the movement, John F. Kennedy became the first president to call for affirmative

action, using the term in an executive order, targeting racial bias and the hiring practices

of government contractors.

...