Censored: Erasing 250 Years of American History on Public Lands

On June 16, 2026, U.S. Vice President JD Vance claimed on “The View” that “Black history is not erased from public spaces.” Yet there is overwhelming evidence that the Trump administration has launched a systematic, whole-of-government effort to rewrite America’s history on public lands through Executive Order 14253, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The administration is removing exhibits, pulling books from shelves, flagging signage for review, and dismantling the interpretive frameworks that give historical sites their meaning.

The Center for American Progress analyzed a leaked Department of the Interior database, reported by The Washington Post and shared on two websites, finding that the Trump administration is attempting to rewrite American history by censoring the stories of marginalized groups in more than one-third of U.S. national parks. Public lands and waters are indispensable in “defining the multicultural ideals and national identity of the United States.” The breadth and consistency of these actions make clear that this is not about “advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing,” as stated in the executive order; it is a coordinated campaign to determine whose history is worth telling—and who belongs in America.

The scope and scale of erasure is massive

CAP’s analysis of the Interior Department leak reveals which communities the administration is targeting for erasure as well as the scale and scope of the censorship taking place on public lands across the country. The leaked database includes data from 171 parks where exhibits were flagged for removal or revision. That equals about one-third of the National Park System’s 433 official units and extends over 43 states, three territories, and Washington, D.C. In fact, these numbers are an undercount, as media has reported on removed exhibits that do not appear in the database—such as the rainbow flag removed from Stonewall National Monument and edits made to its website, a mangroves wayside removed from Big Cypress National Preserve, and exhibit panels at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.

One hundred fifty-two out of the 171 parks in the database flagged exhibits related to erasing history or censoring science. Nearly half of all the parks—82 of the 171—were flagged for Black history content, making it the most heavily targeted category, followed by Indigenous history (74), science content (55), women’s history (20), labor (10), immigrant history (11), and LGBTQ+ history (3). The examples below can all be found in the leaked database and the appendix table at the end of this analysis. Unless otherwise cited, quotations and information describing the examples and content come from the database.

Some parks in the database—a total of 36—flagged exhibits for unknown reasons or those unrelated to history or science. For example, officials at Grand Canyon National Park flagged about 400 waysides to be replaced because of sun damage.

Black history

Eighty-two parks flagged exhibits for mentioning slavery, racism, the Civil War, civil rights, segregation, integration, or Black history:

• The Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail honors the route of the 1965 voting rights marches. Officials there flagged content acknowledged as “historically accurate and supported by first hand accounts” but deemed potentially “disparaging [to visitors] less familiar with the Civil Rights Movement” that may make someone uncomfortable.
• Cane River Creole National Historical Park in Louisiana interprets the history of the Oakland and Magnolia plantations and the Creole people who lived on those lands for more than 200 years. Park officials flagged exhibits naming enslavers and using the phrase “white privilege.”
• At Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia—steps from where the Declaration of Independence was signed—a sign detailing the nine enslaved people George Washington brought from Mount Vernon to serve at the President’s House Site was flagged and subsequently removed, erasing from public view the lives of people who made his presidency possible.

Indigenous history

Indigenous stories are the second-largest category targeted for erasure. Officials at 74 parks flagged exhibits for mention of colonialism, Native Americans, and Indigenous history:

• At Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, an exhibit asking visitors to reckon with explorer Gustavus Cheyney Doane’s participation in the Marias Massacre—in which U.S. Army troops killed more than 170 Piegan Blackfeet people, including women, elders, and children—was flagged and subsequently removed.
• At Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana, language describing how American Indian boarding schools “violently erased cultural identities and language in the children they were entrusted to educate” was flagged for revision; this was language the Northern Cheyenne Tribe had specifically requested through an official Tribal consultation and has since strongly opposed changing.

Science content

Executive Order 14253 says content describing natural features must emphasize “beauty, abundance, and grandeur,” a phrase that seems to be used as justification to censor science and mentions of human-caused damage. Mentions of climate change, nature, or science, as well as harm caused by humans, including habitat loss, hunting, and pollution, have been flagged in 55 parks:

• Exhibits at Acadia National Park in Maine were removed for mentioning climate change, nature, pollution, and Indigenous history.
• At Zion National Park in Utah, seven waysides were flagged, including a “Leave No Trace” exhibit encouraging visitors to dispose of waste properly and not harm the landscape and a panel about endangered pollinators.
• At Fort Sumter National Monument in South Carolina, a sign about rising sea levels threatening the fort was removed. The Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate submitted 10 entries flagging agencywide curriculum documents and Junior Ranger booklets for phrases such as “human-caused climate change” and “with over 7 billion people on the planet, humans are affecting the climate.”

Women, labor, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ history

Twenty parks flagged exhibits for mentioning women:

• An exhibit was flagged by the First Ladies National Historic Site in Ohio, where Abigail Adams was quoted urging her husband, former President John Adams, to “remember the ladies.”
• The Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument flagged books on the suffrage movement.
• At Cape Hatteras National Seashore, a children’s Junior Ranger booklet was reviewed for “appropriateness” for mentioning that some women historically dressed as pirates.

Eleven parks flagged exhibits for telling immigrant history:

• Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument highlights human stories and life in the Sonoran Desert. Officials there flagged four books for removal, including Solito, a memoir by Javier Zamora about his journey as a 9-year-old migrant from El Salvador.
• Officials at Antietam National Battlefield flagged an informational booklet titled “Hispanics and the Civil War: From Battlefield to Homefront.”

Ten parks flagged stories from the labor movement:

• Pullman National Historical Park in Chicago, established to commemorate “one of the first planned industrial communities” and the 1894 Pullman Strike, flagged political cartoons satirizing community founder George Pullman and former President Grover Cleveland.
• The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal celebrates America’s early transportation history, in which the Potomac River was central to the coal, lumber, and agricultural industries. Officials raised concerns about exhibits that discuss harsh working conditions, labor strikes, and the canal company’s bankruptcy—all crucial pieces of American labor history in the 19th century.

The database contains three parks erasing LGBTQ+ history:

• At Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument in Arizona, a photograph of a visitor holding a Pride flag in the background of an exhibit about basalt bubbles was flagged and replaced.
• At Cumberland Island National Seashore in Georgia, a book that describes a same-sex relationship from the 1800s was removed.

Other revisionist history

Forty-four parks, about 25 percent of the database, were flagged for content that CAP’s analysis categorized as “other revisionist history.” This content was targeted not because it tells the story of a marginalized community or people but because it presents an honest, critical, or unflattering account of American history, American institutions, or specific historical figures. The most straightforward pattern is reputation management for individual historic figures:

• At Fort McHenry National Monument in Maryland, flagged exhibits describe former President James Madison as a “weak and uninspiring war leader” who “failed to replace incompetent military commanders.”
• At the White House Visitor Center, a flagged exhibit noted that President Warren G. Harding served illegal cocktails during Prohibition.
• At Christiansted National Historic Site in the Virgin Islands, panels describing the imprisonment of Alexander Hamilton’s mother for being a “woman of ill-repute” were flagged for being “inappropriate or disparaging” to a founding father.

The censorship of these stories results in a story of American history that is heroic, uncomplicated, and free of accountability. Taken together, these examples reveal the administration’s operating principle: No piece of history is too significant to suppress, and none is too small to notice.

Conclusion

On July 4, 2026, the United States will mark 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a document that proclaims that all men are created equal. The semiquincentennial is a rare opportunity for collective reflection—to understand who Americans have been, what they have built, and who has been left out of that story. It is also a moment to reckon with the full arc of American history, including its contradictions, and to affirm that the national story belongs to everyone.

These Trump administration actions reach into national parks, museums, schools, and courtrooms, targeting not only Black history but also Indigenous, labor, women’s, and LGBTQ+ rights and history, as well as climate change and the scientific record of human-caused environmental damage. The breadth and consistency of these actions make clear that this is not about advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing; it is a coordinated campaign to determine whose history is worth telling—and who belongs in America.

The administration has already removed as many as 57 exhibits from a total of 40 parks, but on June 12, 2026, a federal judge temporarily blocked the National Park Service from removing or revising additional exhibits at parks across the country. This is just the latest example of the courts issuing injunctions and ruling against the administration, with one injunction stating that the administration is trying “to rewrite the Nation’s history with a white-out pen.”

These actions are not occurring in a vacuum; they are happening as the federal government simultaneously plans the largest national commemoration in a generation. The question of what America chooses to remember at its 250th anniversary is not abstract; it is being answered now, in real time, through deliberate dismantling of the infrastructure that has told the fullest version of this country’s story. An America confident in its future cannot afford to fear its past.

The authors of this analysis would like to thank Kavin Haldo and Kat So for fact-checking data, Dr. Alia Hidayat for support with explaining our methodology, Jenny Rowland-Shea and Will Roberts for their insights, and the dedicated and brave public servants at the Department of the Interior who have faithfully upheld their oath to the Constitution and the American people.

Methodological appendix

The authors analyzed an anonymous leaked database from the U.S. Department of the Interior. A group self-described as “civil servants on the front lines” posted the database on two public websites on March 2, 2026, including 555 entries, each listing a wide range of images, books, videos, podcasts, scripts, informational handouts, maps, activity booklets for children, and other historical exhibits flagged by government officials across the country for removal or revision on specific public lands in compliance with Executive Order 14253, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The data are compiled in a spreadsheet along with folders that include images, videos, and documents accompanying each entry. Each entry was analyzed by two experts separately and categorized into one of the nine content categories below. In its own analysis, CAP assigned entries to either one or multiple categories:

1. Black history: A broad category that includes slavery, anti-Black racism, the Civil War, Black civil rights, segregation, integration, and Black history.
2. Indigenous history: Includes Tribal history and other events featuring Native American or Indigenous culture.
3. Women’s history: Includes the women’s rights movement and other historical events featuring women.
4. Labor history: Includes the labor movement and history of various industries and business leaders within the United States.
5. Immigrant history: Includes mentions of immigrant minority communities, other events in the history of immigrants in the United States, and the experiences of different peoples moving to the country.
6. LGBTQ+ history: Includes the mentions or history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people or rights in the United States.
7. Science content: Mentions of climate change, nature, or science, as well as harm caused by humans, including habitat loss, hunting, fishing, and pollution.
8. Other revisionist history: Items in this category do not fit neatly into one of the other categories, but has been flagged because it could be perceived as disparaging a person or the country. Recommended changes could include editing or removing mentions of someone’s personal shortcomings, flattening or removing context, or revising history inaccurately. This category does not directly overlap with another category but could be related to multiple categories. For example, if someone was an enslaver, they were assigned to “Black history,” but if they were also a drunk, they were recorded under “other revisionist history” as well.
9. Not related/unknown: Suggested change or removal because of inaccuracy, typo, some other error, or exhibit that is in poor condition.

Some database entries were missing information. Where possible, the authors filled in any database gaps with outside research based on relevant context within each of the parks or exhibits; notes are on file with the authors.

Some of the suggested revisions or removals dealt with a specific history, such as Black history, but were flagged as needing “repair” or being changed for a reason unrelated to the specific history. Nonetheless, the authors determined that some of the entries flagged for unclear, unrelated, or unknown reasons could lead to the removal of these stories from public lands; thus, they were included in the relevant categories.

Some of the suggested revisions may have seemed like a positive suggestion for a specific community, and some included a note that park officials had previously worked with a community to update the exhibit. The authors included these in their analysis because, regardless of the suggestion, inclusion in the database could lead to removal of these stories from public lands; thus, they were also included in the relevant categories.