The Standing

A daily, non-partisan record of US democratic norms — and the events that erode them.

    Interior/NPS database flags hundreds of park signs on slavery, civil rights, climate for removal

    An internal Department of the Interior and National Park Service database, authenticated by The Washington Post with current federal employees, flags several hundred signs, exhibits, films, and books across national park sites for removal or revision under President Trump's order to scrub "partisan ideology" and content that "disparages" Americans. Flagged materials include exhibits on slavery, the civil rights movement, Japanese-American internment, racial violence, and climate science — among them at least 30 signs at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. Some materials had already been removed when the database was reported on March 2, 2026, while the department said final decisions on others had not been made.

    Jurisdiction
    federal
    Location
    Washington, D.C. (nationwide)

    Abuses documented

    Actors

    • Doug Burgum
    • U.S. Department of the Interior
    • National Park Service

    Why we recorded this

    Public lands are one of the ways a democracy tells the truth about its own past. The signs, films, and exhibits at national park sites are official government records of American history — including its hardest chapters, from slavery and the civil rights movement to the forced relocation of Indigenous peoples and Japanese-American internment. When a federal agency compiles a centralized database to remove or rewrite hundreds of these materials because they supposedly "disparage" the country or stray from a story of "beauty, abundance, or grandeur," it is altering the official record on the basis of viewpoint and suppressing government-published research, including climate science. The Standing records this because a government that quietly edits its own history to flatter those in power erodes the shared facts citizens need to hold it accountable.

    Sources

    1. National Park Service database flags hundreds of items that might 'disparage' America — The Washington Post primary accessed June 12, 2026
    2. Leaked Interior Department database reveals U.S. plans to revise historical information — Reuters secondary accessed June 12, 2026
    3. Trump administration is erasing history and science at national parks, lawsuit argues — NPR secondary accessed June 12, 2026

    See also