Many organizations did not value diversity or do much about it. But it is quite something else to openly disavow it and rescind long-accepted prohibitions against racial discrimination that weren't even considered controversial even five years ago.

My generation, the first generation of Black Americans in the history of our nation born with full rights of citizenship, is watching our rights and opportunities shrink. We now have fewer rights and protections today than what we were born with. That's what happened in the second nadir.

"And so we must be clear about the stakes: Our nation teeters at the brink of a particularly dangerous moment, not just for Black Americans but for democracy itself." We are in a dangerous period. Some may think these anti-DEI efforts are the least of our concerns. History tells a different story.

I ended that piece with a warning: "What we are witnessing, once again, is the alignment of white power against racial justice and redress. As history has shown, maintaining racial inequality requires constant repression and is therefore antithetical to democracy..."

The White House called the revocation of Executive Order 11246 “the most important federal civil rights measure in decades." I wrote about this tactic of co-opting the language of racial equality to cement racial INequality in my NYT Mag cover story last year called "The Colorblindness Trap."

Trump utilized the conservative talking points that DEI is antithetical to a meritocracy and eliminating it ensures people gain positions based on qualifications, not skin color. Yet the administration has repeatedly put forth cabinet picks with little or no qualifications for the particular job.

Federal workers are disproportionately Black. Ending DEI AND also eliminating the explicit prohibition against discrimination in hiring and in federal contracting is therefore about more than the culture wars. It, like the affirmative action ban, is about limiting opportunity for Black advancement.

But in 1965, LBJ issued exec order 11246 banning discrimination in federal hiring and with federal contractors. That order helped re-build the Black middle class and today DC is home to the nation's most economically thriving Black community. Today, Trump rescinded that landmark order as well.

When Wilson allowed for the re-segregation of the federal goverment, it did not just separate Black and white workers. Historian Eric Yellen shows stymied Black professional advancement by keeping Black Americans from higher-paying, higher-status jobs even after they'd passed civil service exams.

As a student of history, I'm not being hyperbolic. The federal government built the Black middle class in DC, and in many parts of the U.S., largely because it was one of the first organizations to hire Black professionals and prohibit discrimination. It is amongst the most diverse US workforce.

Trump has signed an executive order eliminating all funding for diversity and inclusion in the federal government, sending home DEI staff who will then be laid off. The historical echo for this is when Woodrow Wilson resegregated the federal government in 1913. We have reached the second nadir.