The Trump administration is reviewing documents on slavery in federal parks, the destruction of Native American culture and climate change after employees flagged information that could “people” Americans, according to screenshots shared with the Associated Press.
President Donald Trump signed Presidential Order In March, he will direct the Department of Home Affairs, which manages parks, monuments and other designated lands to prevent public property from including elements that “improperly condemn the past or living Americans.” Instead, they said, “focusing on the greatness of American achievements and progress” and “the beauty, richness and grandeur of the American landscape.”
The National Park Service was able to flag “inappropriate” signs, exhibits and other materials, according to documents that obtained internal information from anonymous sources within the Department of Interior, according to documents shared with the Associated Press by the National Park Conservation Association. The public was also encouraged to participate.
“When we implement this directive, we will evaluate all the signs in the park along with the public feedback we receive,” said Elizabeth Peace, a spokesman for the Department of Interior. “This effort strengthens our commitment to telling the complete and accurate story of our country’s past.” The department said that once edits are made, signs that contradict the executive order will be removed or covered and revived. The administration said it would remove all “inappropriate” material by September 17th. New York Timescites internal institution documents.
The directive raised concerns about disinfecting and erasing dark sides of American history.
“Pretending that bad never happened can’t be erased,” said Alan Spears, senior director of the National Park Conservation Association, a nonpartisan group separate from the national park system that advocates for it. “If you want to bring people together, you need to be able to talk about these things.”
Take a look at some of the materials that have been flagged for review.
North Carolina: Climate change, pollution
Controversy: The sign entitled “The Air We We Breathe” was flagged because the importance of clean air is being discussed. The pollution from human-raised ozone threatens people’s health and vegetation, and it describes power plants, cars and industries that burn fossil fuels as the main source of pollutants.
There are indications of climate change-related sea level rise on Cape Hatteras National Coast in North Carolina. “We don’t think it’s a violation, but I want someone to review whether the message of climate change and sea level rise reduces its focus on grandeur, beauty and abundance,” one employee wrote.
Backstory: Emissions from burning fossil fuels heat the planets, melt ice sheets and glaciers, and expand the seawater. The rising seas threaten the people and ecosystems that live on the coast.
Response: Carlos Martinez, climate scientist with the Alliance of Scientists of Concern, believes institutions should educate the public about the threats facing national parks.
These public parks, he said, are places to learn about pollution, climate change and environmental degradation, and he said he is eliminating this information.
South Carolina and Pennsylvania: Black enslavement
Controversy: At a gift shop on the Charles Pinkney National Historical Site in South Carolina, the book marked for review was a book for sale that includes Harriet Jacobs’ “The Cases in the Life of a Slave Girl.” Similar books, including a Washington memorial, were flagged elsewhere. There, someone identified the book George Washington discusses as a slave owner.
In Pennsylvania’s Independent National Historical Park, flags were exposed, slave owners of trickery, rape and other atrocities were accounts of other atrocities given to black people. Another identified an exhibit about Black Americans who run away freely by employees to name slave owners.
Backstory: The legacy of slavery and racism has laid the foundation for the inequality blacks face in the United States. Higher rates Poverty, illness, illness, and more incarceration Five times Percentage of white people.
Reaction: “Slavery is not a side story. It has been the engine of American economic growth for over two centuries,” says Cedric Haynes, NAACP’s vice president of policy and legislative affairs. “And there are individuals who participated in this.”
Because that legacy is embedded in the wealth of American laws, institutions and nations, it is important to name those who perpetuated the atrocities of slavery.
Alaska and Florida: A complex history with Native Americans
Controversy: At Sitka National Historical Park in Alaska, employees flagged a panel about missionaries who tried to destroy the language and culture of Alaskan natives and forcibly remove them from the land. “Text concerns” stated, “The history of this land includes a series of actions attempting to remove the Shetka Kwan from the land, culture and language, including forced relocation under both Russian and American governance.”
At the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in Florida, the tagged panel was a discussion of the imprisonment of the Plains Indians. “The text in the panel requires a review of languages that refer to tribes that choose to extinction or assimilate. The language of the US government that gives an “choice” of extinction can be considered negative to the US,” they write.
Backstory: “The relationship between the United States and Indigenous peoples has been bewildering, violent, confiscated and complicated for centuries, and national parks are part of that story.” “To block out some of those stories, because they may make someone uncomfortable, it’s a loss to the ecological and cultural values of these lands.”
Brenda Child, a member of the Lake Ojibwe Tribe at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and a research professor for the American and American Indians, said it has only been around 20 years since he began to speak about the exact history of the US and Native Americans.
Reaction: It’s sad to think about the efforts to rewrite it, she says, when there is ultimately a more accurate portrayal of the history of American indigenous peoples. “But the way I see these things all the time, you can try to suppress it, but the cat is out of the bag. We know what happened. The book is written.”
Florida: A small industry in America?
What’s in dispute: Florida’s Everglades National Park A small amount of industrial development in America? The stories of land urbanization, agriculture and other areas presented throughout the park “can be considered to be a light par for the development of the industrial industry,” one employee wrote.
Backstory: The Everglades are a subtropical wilderness that protects 1.5 million acres of habitat and biodiversity, and is an important source of drinking water for millions of people. Seminole and Miccosukee Tribes have called these lands home for centuries.
Decades of urban and agricultural development degraded ecosystems until 1947 when the park was established to protect what was left of it. Ongoing, a large state and federal project approved with bipartisan support by Congress in 2000 is aimed at reversing the damages.
Reaction: People have “seasoned generations without knowing these harms before, and now we can’t lose sight of the lessons we’ve learned,” said Evesampax, executive director of Friends at the Everglades. “If we don’t look clearly at the history and mistakes we have made in the past, we are destined to repeat them.”
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