I take this kind of shit very personally. I love Independence Park, and for MAGAts to attempt to literally whitewash the place makes me furious. Trump’s Department of the Interior is asking members of the public to identify and report content at Independence National Historical Park that they believe shows the United States in a “negative” light as the Orange Blob’s administration takes steps to review or remove materials about race in America. Via the Philadelphia Inquirer:
The Trump administration is currently considering whether to remove displays addressing the history of slavery at INHP after they were flagged by employees during a review prompted by a Trump executive order.
[…] On entering the INHP campus on Market Street, “The House & the People Who Worked & Lived In It” is the first signage visitors are greeted with, on the east wall of the President’s House Site, where Presidents George Washington and John Adams lived. It provides a “brief timeline of freedom and slavery at this site.”
“These sites are important because it illustrates that Black people have been in the city since its founding. The Black history of Philly is actually older than Philadelphia itself,” said South Philly resident Mijuel Johnson, a community organizer who leads the Black Journey: African American History Walking Tour with stops in Society Hill and at Independence Hall.
“The earliest Black people arrived just two years after the city was founded in 1682. But there is presence of African people in the greater Philadelphia area as far back as 1639.”
Laminated paper signs displaying a QR code, which leads to an online feedback form, and a short paragraph of instructions are stationed across INHP sites, including the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.
They encourage the public to submit feedback on areas around the park that need repairs or service improvements, and also ask for comments on “any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.”
The good news is, the Park only got 16 comments, none of them negative — except for taking umbrage at the idea of removing the full historical picture.
And I love the responses they got at Gettysburg:
Gettysburg National Military Park, the site of the crucial battle of the Civil War and President Abraham Lincoln’s famous address, had 25 submissions from visitors.
Several of them were from members of the public who want Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and his army to be labeled as traitors. A park employee noted in the internal database on two of these comments that “Use of the term ‘traitor’ may be considered inappropriately disparaging towards a group in violation of [Burgum’s order]” and that “Use of the term ‘traitor’ to describe General Lee may be considered inappropriately disparaging towards an individual. This is an oversimplification of difficult decisions made by leaders during the Civil War.”
Lee was indicted for treason by a federal grand jury weeks after the Civil War’s end, though the case ultimately did not go to trial as President Andrew Johnson’s administration prioritized national reconciliation after the war.
Gettysburg staff also “flagged for review” a monument that park staff says “glorifies” the “Lost Cause” myth, which romanticizes the Confederacy and downplays the role of slavery in the Civil War.
