Betty C. Jung

“The system has taken everything from them. So why would Trump 🤡 and his administration want to at least take away their story? Haven’t they given enough?”

The Guardian’s Deleted data series explores how critical US government information is being deleted and what the consequences will be,

“Not only does this undermine the integrity of the National Parks; it sets a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization.” “What more do you want to take away from them?” he said.

“This Administration seeks to share a limited history by ordering the removal of all signs, displays, and interpretive exhibits at National Parks that do not align with its preferred narrative, thereby telling half-truths,” US district judge Angel Kelley wrote in a 63-page injunction.

In part because of these efforts, Trump’s censorship effort is now caught in legal limbo. In June, a federal judge blocked any further removals and ordered all signs that had been taken down to be restored.

The Guardian also identified dozens of instances in which parks staff turned Trump’s executive order on its head, using it as an opportunity to report existing signage that was disparaging to Native Americans and other marginalized groups.

to recognize the life and legacy of the 14-year-old Till, who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955. In just one year, the Trump 🤡 administration has turned back the clock on much of that progress, said James. “The goal now is just to sell a whitewashed and sanitized view of that history.”

At Cape Hatteras National Seashore, a part of the country where homes are being swept away into the ocean, signs about sea level rise and climate change were flagged because they “reduce the focus on the grandeur, beauty and abundance”.

“You might hear the shouts of hundreds of dockworkers, many of them enslaved people until the end of the Civil War in 1865,” the sign read. The submitter wrote: “is the word ‘enslaved’ ok here?”

Several entries show staff were unsure about what to do or guessing at what they should submit. A sign at the National Mall in Washington DC, describing a now defunct waterfront wharf, was flagged for a brief reference to enslaved dock-workers.

The leaked database – which includes nearly 2,000 images and files of flagged park material – provides a rare and detailed look into how Trump🤡’s executive order was implemented and the broad swathe of park history and science that was at risk of censorship.

In March of this year, the database of staff submissions was leaked by an anonymous group that calls themselves the “civil servants on the front lines”.

The Guardian verified the contents of the database with multiple NPS staff.

Often heralded as “America’s best idea”, national parks are the closest thing the country has to sacred lands. What many may not realize, however, is US history – not just nature – is at the heart of the visitor experience at most of the 433 parks, historic sites and monuments in the NPS system.

‘A sanitized view of America’: inside Trump🤡’s campaign to erase US history from national parks
Critics say the Trump 🤡 administration is trying to rewrite and whitewash history by removing and altering scores of signs on public lands www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

‘A sanitized view of America’:...