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Donald Trump’s war on history appears to have widened, with The Washington Post reporting that his administration has ordered the removal of multiple signs and exhibits at national parks related to the history of slavery.
The Post reported that these moves are the result of a deranged executive order Trump signed in March, in which he ordered the Interior Department to whitewash materials at national parks and other federal sites that recount the factual story of American inequality — which the order called “corrosive ideology.” I’ve written previously about the disturbing parallels between Trump’s attacks on museums and those waged by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.
The Trump administration has ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks, according to four people familiar with the matter, including a historic photograph of a formerly enslaved man showing scars on his back.
That historic photo — known as “The Scourged Back” — shows Peter Gordon, an enslaved man who was whipped after attempting to escape. As the Metropolitan Museum of Art notes, it’s one of the most famous Civil War-era portraits ever taken. Such accurate depictions of the brutality of slavery evidently run afoul of Trump’s blissful ignorance, given his gripe that Smithsonian museums focus too much on “how bad Slavery was.”
The censorship didn’t end with the 19th-century photo, according to the Post:
The latest orders include removing information at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park in West Virginia, two people familiar with the matter said, where the abolitionist John Brown led a raid seeking to arm slaves for a revolt. Staff have also been told that information at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia, where George Washington kept slaves, does not comply with the policy, according to a third individual.
They’re literally trying to whitewash the history of slavery from the site of an anti-slavery rebellion.
A National Parks Service spokesperson told the Post that all signs are under review and that interpretive materials “that disproportionately emphasize negative aspects of U.S. history or historical figures, without acknowledging broader context or national progress, can unintentionally distort understanding rather than enrich it.”
A couple of different motives seem to be at play here. On one hand, there’s the obvious racism in waging a government-led crusade against depictions of racist oppression. The administration’s tireless efforts here evoke memories of the racist “Black Codes” — a set of laws passed in states starting in the mid-19th century that were aimed at criminalizing freed Black people. Those laws frequently outlawed speech condemning racism, labeling such speech “seditious” rather than merely “corrosive.”
And it’s also worth noting that Trump has said more than once now that he sees benefits in an uneducated citizenry. During his first presidential campaign, he memorably boasted that he loves “the poorly educated,” and just this past weekend he was recorded — in a now-viral video — saying smart people don’t like him.
That’s some helpful context to consider as you watch the president and his administration effectively try to dumb down the U.S. by hiding the nation’s history from its residents.