What Trump’s Attack On Birthright Citizenship Means For Black Americans
Black History Year
PushBlack
4.6 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 9 September 2025
⏱️ 3 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1857, this country told Dred Scott that Black people like him could never be citizens. Then, our ancestors secured our birthright citizenship. Today, Trump is threatening to make the “impossible” possible, filing to end birthright citizenship. What does that mean for Black Americans?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In 1857, this country told Dred Scott that black people like him could never be citizens. |
| 0:06.0 | Then our ancestors secured our birthright citizenship. |
| 0:11.0 | Today, Donald Trump is threatening to make the impossible, |
| 0:17.0 | filing to end birthright citizenship. |
| 0:20.0 | What does that mean for black Americans? |
| 0:24.0 | I'm Len with Push Black, and this is two-minute black history, what you didn't learn in school. |
| 0:37.2 | In 1857, the Supreme Court decided that Dred Scott, his wife Harriet, and millions of other |
| 0:43.7 | Black Americans couldn't sue in federal court because we couldn't be citizens. |
| 0:50.5 | In 2025, President Trump issued an executive order to end birthright citizenship. |
| 0:57.4 | What transpired in between? |
| 1:00.2 | Long before emancipation, black activists argued that people born on United States soil had the right to remain there. |
| 1:08.3 | The 14th Amendment enshrined this in 1868. Native peoples were given |
| 1:14.5 | full citizenship later. But before then, a different objective was on the table. Go back to Africa |
| 1:22.8 | wasn't just anti-black rhetoric, but a proposal. The American Colonization Society aimed to deport |
| 1:30.3 | free black people, useless without forced labor, to West Africa. Right before issuing the |
| 1:37.0 | Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln approved what would become a botch mission to |
| 1:43.8 | ship formerly enslaved people to Haiti. |
| 1:48.0 | Now, after violent U.S. intervention and theft in nations like Haiti, |
| 1:52.9 | black immigrants are being scapegoated and criminalized. |
| 1:57.1 | ICE has targeted citizens before. |
| 2:00.1 | Local white vigilantes have expelled their black neighbors from their hometowns. |
| 2:04.6 | In his inaugural speech, Donald Trump called on audiences to envision his future. |
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