\n Customers browse the bookstore at Gettysburg National Military Park in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
\n NPS Photo\n <\/p>\n
National parks employees have raised the idea of removing books on slavery, Native Americans and George Washington from their gift shops as part of Trump officials\u2019 efforts to scrub these popular sites of \u201ccorrosive ideology\u201d that disparages Americans, accor<\/p>\n
ding to internal records reviewed by The Washington Post.<\/p>\n
Agency employees were required to report items for review by last week. The inventory of books possibly running afoul of the administration\u2019s directive includes \u201cThe 1619 Project\u201d on the history of slavery in America and a picture book about former Interior secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary. Those works are sold at the Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie and Liberty Square park stores in Charleston, South Carolina, along with three other books on slavery and the Civil War that were flagged.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March that instructed the Smithsonian and the national parks to remove \u201cimproper ideology,\u201d which could include discussions of historic racism and sexism.<\/p>\n
Since then, the Interior Department, which oversees the Park Service, has issued policies instructing agency staff to report any information that might be out of compliance, including gift shop merchandise, signs, educational films and websites. Visitors were also invited to submit comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis effort reinforces our commitment to telling the full and accurate story of our nation\u2019s past,\u201d Interior said in a statement. \u201cAs part of an internal process to assess which content may require review, staff at the park can submit materials identifying specific exhibits and interpretive panels.\u201d<\/p>\n
The department did not respond to questions about the gift shops or specific items under review.<\/p>\n
Parks advocates have criticized the Trump administration\u2019s directives as an attempt to whitewash history that has hurt morale among park staff who fear losing their jobs if they do not follow the directive.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur history is complex and, as national park advocates, we trust national park staff to navigate those complexities and do their jobs without interference,\u201d said Alan Spears, senior director for cultural resources at the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat countries don\u2019t hide from or sanitize their history,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Staff also flagged a book at the Washington Monument\u2019s gift shop that discusses the first president as \u201can enslaver\u201d as a potential violation of Trump\u2019s order.<\/p>\n
One park employee reported a book called \u201cWives, Slaves, and Servant Girls: Advertisements for Female Runaways in American Newspapers 1770-1783,\u201d saying \u201cthe park is flagging it out of an abundance of caution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Employees at the Charles Pinckney Historic Site in South Carolina reported half a dozen books on slavery, plantation life and Black history. Pinckney was an enslaver who helped draft the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n
A Junior Ranger children\u2019s booklet at Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial, will be reviewed for saying that Lee broke his promise to serve in the U.S. military and instead chose to fight for slavery.<\/p>\n
The national park inventory system also includes staff reports on signs and other informational items that were submitted for review. A previous call for visitors to report problematic signs yielded thousands of comments largely supporting the parks or opposing the administration\u2019s cuts to park staff and budgets.<\/p>\n
Most of the items flagged by parks staff highlighted references to slavery, the Civil War or civil rights without commenting on what should be done about them. Some employees flagged signs that reference climate change, such as a note about sea-level rise at Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina.<\/p>\n
Another employee flagged a reference to the \u201cGulf of Mexico\u201d at Emerald Mound along the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi.<\/p>\n
While many parks reported very little to the administration, some appeared to take a more cautious approach in flagging items.<\/p>\n
In one instance, an employee reported a sign next to a statue of President Franklin D. Roosevelt at his memorial in Washington for discussing his paralysis from polio.<\/p>\n
\u201cI recommend keeping it but am concerned that it may be seen by some as disparagement,\u201d the comment reads.<\/p>\n
Others appeared to support changes. One staffer wrote \u201creplacement needed\u201d for a sign at Russian Bishop\u2019s House at Sitka National Monument. The sign explains that missionaries worked to destroy indigenous cultures and languages across Alaska.<\/p>\n
In response to the administration\u2019s actions, a group of historians, librarians and data experts at the University of Minnesota at Twin Cities has launched a \u201cSave our Signs\u201d project, encouraging people to post images of signs to preserve information that could be removed.<\/p>\n
\u201cReal history is not just happy stories,\u201d the website reads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Customers browse the bookstore at Gettysburg National Military Park in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. NPS Photo National parks employees have…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":92476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1578,1022,3974,171,3973,61197,50,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-92475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-associated-press","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-content-providers","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-nation-and-world","13":"tag-nation-and-world-politics","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114916192697543796","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}