America's 250th anniversary is colliding with a renewed battle over Black history, just as the White House moves to both smooth over and narrow how race and equity are discussed nationwide with rollbacks of diversity initiatives.

Why it matters: Black History Month — in its 100th year since Carter G. Woodson's 1926 Negro History Week — arrives amid an administration actively shrinking institutions that preserve and teach that history.

• The Trump administration has said that diversity initiatives and racial equity efforts have unfairly advantaged Black and Latino Americans at the expense of white Americans.

Driving the news: Following presidential custom, Trump issued a National Black History Month proclamation on Feb. 3 that maintained "black history is not distinct from American history — rather, the history of Black Americans is an indispensable chapter in our grand American story."

• The proclamation, which the White House tied to the nation's upcoming 250th anniversary, celebrates Black Americans' historic contributions.

Yes, but: Its rhetoric, critics say, stands in tension with the Trump administration's recent actions, raising questions about whether commemoration without context ultimately obscures more than it honors.

• A National Urban League roundtable last month warned that rollbacks of voting rights, diversity initiatives and how history is taught are reinforcing fears that hard-won civil-rights protections are at risk.

What they're saying: "This isn't a break from American history. It's the continuation of it," Michael Harriot, author of "Black AF History," tells Axios.

• "The country was founded on the idea that some people get to define freedom and democracy — and others are excluded from it."

State of play: Federal agencies and cultural institutions have deleted or revised Black history content in response to the president's anti-DEI mandate, which the administration has said is aimed at restoring neutrality.

• Recent Axios polling shows these changes are resonating beyond policy circles, shifting a shared historical narrative to a fragmented, individualized one.

Case in point: The National Park Service recently removed or revised dozens of signs and displays related to the mistreatment of Native Americans and slavery — including an exhibit in Philadelphia detailing the enslaved people George Washington held at the President's House.

• Onyx Impact's Blackout Report found more than 6,700 federal datasets deleted, including data on maternal mortality, sickle cell disease and environmental exposure in historically redlined neighborhoods.
• At the same time, federal and state policy pressure has prompted colleges and universities receiving federal funding to dismantle or downsize DEI offices and programs once central to campus equity efforts.

The bottom line: For Marc H. Morial — who grew up with Ku Klux Klan threats aimed at his family during the civil-rights era — this moment doesn't feel unprecedented. It feels familiar.

• "I've seen this movie before," he says. "In the '60s they stood up. In the 2020s, we've got to stand up."
• Morial says this administration's conviction to pursue these "repressive policies" is not necessarily going to abate.
• "It's a moment where people understand that the nation is being damaged, that our future is being taken away, that the American Dream is being stolen, that we're on the brink of tyranny and authoritarianism."

The State Department is wiping the post history of its X accounts and making it so you'll have to file a Freedom of Information Act request if you want to access any of the content it removed, according to NPR. The publication reports that the State Department is removing all posts from before President Trump's current term — a move that affects several accounts associated with the department, including those for US embassies, and posts from the Biden and Obama administrations. Posts from Trump's first term will be taken down too. 

Unlike how past administrations have handled the removal of social media content and the transition of accounts, these posts won't be kept in a public archive. A spokesperson for the State Department confirmed this to NPR, and said the move is meant "to limit confusion on U.S government policy and to speak with one voice to advance the President, Secretary, and Administration's goals and messaging. It will preserve history while promoting the present." The spokesperson also called the X accounts "one of our most powerful tools for advancing the America First goals." 

The Trump administration has been purging information from government websites since he took office last year. Just this week, the CIA unexpectedly took down its World Factbook, a global reference guide that's been available on the internet since 1997.

Netflix's acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery isn't quite a done deal yet. As first reported by The Wall Street Journal, the US Department of Justice has started its probe of Netflix's proposed purchase, but is notably interested in whether the streaming giant was involved in any anticompetitive practices. According to the civil subpoena seen by WSJ, the Justice Department is looking into any "exclusionary conduct on the part of Netflix that would reasonably appear capable of entrenching market or monopoly power."

While Netflix announced plans to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in December at a value of $82.7 billion, the deal was expected to close in 12 to 18 months, subject to required regulatory approvals. The DOJ has the power to block the transaction and this investigation could hint at the agency's approach, which may involve proving that Netflix put its competition at an unfair advantage.

Netflix's attorney, Steven Sunshine, told WSJ that this probe was standard practice and that, "we have not been given any notice or seen any other sign that the DOJ is conducting a separate monopolization investigation." Netflix also said in a statement that it's "constructively engaging with the Department of Justice as part of the standard review of our proposed acquisition of Warner Bros." According to WSJ, the investigation is still in its early stages and could take up to a year to complete.