America’s public lands and waters serve a purpose beyond recreation and nature conservation. They are the physical record of Americans’ national journey, where scenic landscapes, ancestral homelands, and historic places convey the stories that shaped the United States. America’s public lands are not limited to the large nature parks such as Yellowstone and Yosemite; they also celebrate American heroes, innovations, and historical moments all across the country, from the George Washington Carver National Monument in Missouri to the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park in Louisiana and the National Historical Park in Kansas.
Public lands carry the reminder of how Americans built, contested, and reimagined the nation. They are, fundamentally, civic institutions—spaces where history is not only told but also experienced. As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the integrity of this public record matters more than ever.
However, the Trump administration continues to corrupt the public record and whitewash the history of this country. Through a multipronged strategy that includes purging diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, pushing for changes in school curricula, and censoring museum exhibits, the administration has implemented a series of orders to reduce access to public areas and censor and rewrite historical exhibits, particularly those targeting the history and impact of Black Americans on public lands. For example, the rollback of fee‑free days on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, when parks are free to the public, symbolically limits public access to history and weakens the government’s own acknowledgment that these lands—and the narratives they hold—belong to all Americans. The Trump administration’s Orwellian executive order to restore “truth and sanity” to American history flattens slavery into blameless abstraction, detaches the Civil Rights Movement from the forces that made it necessary, and isolates Black achievement from the context that gives it meaning. By erasing Black history from public lands, the administration diminishes the national heritage all Americans are meant to share and disparages the contributions of Black Americans.
By erasing Black history from public lands, the administration diminishes the national heritage all Americans are meant to share and disparages the contributions of Black Americans.
Public lands and waters tell the messy and beautiful story of America
Black history is not a separate narrative running parallel to the American story; it is central to it. The United States was built, both literally and figuratively, by enslaved people and their descendants. And many of those important historical moments, people, and ideas are enshrined in public lands and waters, including stories of Black excellence and exclusion.
Harriet Tubman navigated waterways and woodlands with extraordinary skill to guide enslaved people to freedom, turning landscapes into tools of liberation. Today, the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historic Park in Maryland preserves the landscapes she navigated, making visible the environmental knowledge that led to freedom.
Another example is the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York, which honors the estimated 15,000 enslaved and free Africans buried there in the 17th and 18th centuries and details how Black labor built America’s first cities. Similarly, the Nicodemus National Historic Site in Kansas commemorates one of the oldest and only remaining Black settlements established by formerly enslaved people after the Civil War, documenting Black Americans’ determination to claim land and build self-sufficient communities despite systemic barriers. These sites exist because communities fought for the recognition and preservation of Black history on public lands.
The Civil Rights Movement is similarly represented across the country at sites including the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and the Emmett Till and Mamie Till‑Mobley National Monument. These places illuminate the mechanics of segregation, the courage of local movements, and the transformative power of collective action. Their value lies not only in honoring triumphs but in acknowledging the forces these movements confronted: police violence, political disenfranchisement, economic exclusion, and racial terror.
Public lands also honor Black individuals and communities whose contributions reshaped American culture, science, governance, and identity. The George Washington Carver National Monument tells the story of how its namesake’s revolutionary study of soil science transformed American agriculture and land conservation, preventing ecological collapse across Southern farmlands. Other important public sites dedicated to Black achievement include the Frederick Douglass, the Tuskegee Airmen, and the Carter G. Woodson Home national historic sites.
Even the development of the National Park System itself, often celebrated as “America’s best idea,” bears the imprint of Black leadership. The Buffalo Soldiers, members of the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, served as some of the earliest park stewards in Yosemite and Sequoia national parks, building infrastructure, protecting resources, and shaping the early conservation ethic.
Black history is under attack by the Trump administration
The erasure of Black history across public lands and waters is not accidental or new. Even after the National Park Service was established in 1916, parks maintained segregated facilities well into the 1960s, with separate beaches, campgrounds, and picnic areas that erroneously codified Black inferiority into the very landscapes the Buffalo Soldiers had stewarded.
Erasing Black stories on public lands is nothing new
The Civilian Conservation Corps segregated its companies, relegating Black enrollees such as those in Company 818 to separate camps with inferior resources, while their labor created the parks and forests from which they would be barred. These are not footnotes to American environmental history—they are central chapters that reveal innovation, resilience, and deep ecological knowledge alongside a persistent fight for equal access and recognition.
The Federal Housing Administration’s redlining policies systematically prevented Black families from purchasing homes near parks and natural areas, while highway construction projects deliberately bisected Black neighborhoods and severed communities from urban waterfronts and green spaces. This is underscored by recent studies examining the nature gap, or the uneven and inequitable distribution of and access to intact natural places.
When Black families successfully created their own beach communities and gathering places, they faced violent dispossession: Bruce’s Beach in Manhattan Beach, California, was seized through eminent domain in 1924 and not returned to the Bruce family until 2022. These actions were not isolated incidents of prejudice—they were systematic federal, state, and local policies designed to exclude Black Americans from nature itself.
Despite acts of violence, discrimination, and one-sided and incomplete storytelling, the legacies of Black history and achievements have been increasingly told by public lands throughout the years. Instead of continuing on that path, the Trump administration is rolling back many of these advancements through the removal of public displays and the erasure of the context of these achievements.
Independence Hall in Pennsylvania, where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed, stands at the center of both America’s founding ideals and its history of enslavement. The nearby President’s House Site reveals this contradiction: George Washington brought enslaved Africans to live here during his presidency. And from 1850 to 1854, people accused of liberating themselves from enslavement were put on trial at Independence Hall. In January 2026, the Trump administration ordered the removal of slavery-related interpretive panels at the President’s House Site within Independence National Historical Park, drawing widespread criticism from historians, local officials, and community members. A month later, a U.S. federal judge sided with the City of Philadelphia’s request to restore the exhibit panels at Independence Hall. The Interior Department said in a statement that it disagreed with the court ruling and that it was planning to file an appeal. These buildings are a living testament to the messy contradiction between the nation’s promise of freedom and the reality of slavery, offering a lens through which to grapple with the evolving meaning of “liberty and justice for all.” These Trump administration actions attempt to deprive Black Americans of true representation in the nation’s story.
Other examples include
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, in West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland, where the administration removed information about abolitionist John Brown’s raid to arm enslaved people and flagged more than 30 signs for removal because they referenced racial discrimination and white hostility toward formerly enslaved people. The National Park Service also removed the iconic
“Scourged Back” photograph—showing the scarred back of an enslaved man—from exhibits at
Fort Pulaski National Monument in Georgia, erasing one of the most visceral pieces of evidence documenting slavery’s brutality. This erasure of Black resistance and struggle from public lands mirrors the administration’s broader attacks on diversity programs and civil rights enforcement. Erasing these stories from the places that bear witness to them does not just distort history, it also severs the connection between past struggles and present-day fights for justice.
The Trump administration is censoring the stories that made America
Other public sites where Black stories are being erased completely or through context include:
- Stones River National Battlefield in Tennessee is the site of a major Civil War battle where thousands of U.S. Colored Troops served and are buried in the national cemetery. A park service official flagged for review a plaque that “addresses slavery as the primary cause of the American Civil War.”
- Cane River Creole National Historical Park in Louisiana preserves Oakland and Magnolia plantations and the unique Creole culture that emerged in the region. A park service official flagged for review “an exhibit about slaves who tried to escape but were captured.”
- Arlington House in Virginia is the former home of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Trump officials told “park staff to stop using a booklet that was designed to teach children about slavery.”
- Charles Pinckney Historic Site in South Carolina preserves the plantation of a founding father and signer of the Constitution. Employees flagged for review half a dozen books on slavery, plantation life, and Black history.
- Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in New York, a nature sanctuary, removed a display that referenced historical events such as slavery, Japanese internment camps, and conflicts with Native Americans.
Stories also lose their power when severed from the conditions under which they emerged. President Donald Trump announced that Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play Major League Baseball, would be included in his “National Garden of American Heroes” as a “black patriot.” But Jackie Robinson Ballpark in Daytona Beach, Florida, is a national commemorative site in recognition of Robinson’s lasting impact on American history beyond his accomplishments as a Brooklyn Dodger.
To mention only what Black Americans have accomplished, without acknowledging what they have endured, converts history into abstraction. Jackie Robinson did not simply play baseball at an elite level; he did so while breaking the sport’s color barrier and facing unrelenting racism during his entire 10 years in Major League Baseball. Yet President Trump said uncomfortable stories such as these “needlessly divide our citizens on the basis of race, painting a toxic and distorted and disfigured vision of our history, heritage, and heroes.” Context is not an accessory to history; it is the substance of it. When history is stripped of substance, the federal government reinforces a message that these histories, and these lands, are not meant for everyone.
Conclusion
The United States is preparing to mark 250 years as a nation. Moments such as these invite reflection not only on what Americans celebrate but also on who is remembered and how truthfully the nation tells the story. A selective narrative—one that squints at Black achievement and mutes injustice—cannot support a durable or inclusive national identity, nor can it prepare the nation for the work still ahead.
If the 250th anniversary is to honor the country’s democratic foundation, it must also honor the full arc of Black history: the forced labor that built the early nation, the resilience that reshaped it, and the fearless visionaries who expanded the meaning of “all men are created equal.” Preserving and presenting history faithfully on public lands is not merely an act of remembrance; it is an act of patriotism.
An America confident in its future does not fear its past.
The path forward is clear. The federal government must protect and strengthen the integrity of historical interpretation across America’s public lands and waters, restore and expand public access—including on commemorative days that honor Black history—and invest in storytelling that reflects the complexity of the American experience. Doing so affirms that these lands, and the histories they enshrine, belong to every American.
An America confident in its future does not fear its past. It confronts the past directly, preserves it faithfully, and carries it forward so that each generation can inherit a fuller understanding of who Americans have been—and who they aspire to become.
The authors would like to thank Frederick Bell, Cody Hankerson, Cindy Murphy-Tofig, Kate Petosa, Will Roberts, Jenny Rowland-Shea, Jasia Smith, and Mike Williams.