Whitewashing History
By 
The Trump administraiton is making sure that you can’t learn about slavery:
National Park Service staff on Thursday took down an exhibit on slavery at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, which had been targeted last year by President Donald Trump in an executive order on “restoring truth and sanity to American history.”
The exhibit was at the President’s House Site, where George Washington lived as president. The informational panels discussed Washington’s ownership of enslaved people, as well as the broader history of slavery, and included details about their lives.
The Park Service has been removing information on historic racism, sexism, LGBT rights, slavery and climate change since last year as it carries out Trump’s executive order.
Other national park materials recently ordered removed include a sign describing basalt bubbles at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument that used an image of a visitor holding a Pride flag, according to materials reviewed by The Washington Post.
Separately, Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts has stopped showing a pair of films that included information on labor history. A park staffer who answered the phone at Lowell said the films had been removed to ensure compliance with the Interior Secretary’s order implementing Trump’s executive order.
“The President has directed federal agencies to review interpretive materials to ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values,” Interior Department spokesperson Elizabeth Peace said in a statement. “Following completion of the required review, the National Park Service is now taking action to remove or revise interpretive materials in accordance with the Order.”
Activists and eyewitnesses confirmed that signs at the exhibit had been removed and that reenactments of historical events, some of which portrayed enslaved people living at the site, were no longer being displayed on television monitors there.Ask The Post AIDive deeper
“I’m infuriated,” said Mijuel K. Johnson, who witnessed staff in Park Service uniforms removing the signs. “They have taken down every single sign, monitors unplugged, everything.”
The city of Philadelphia is suing over this:
The city of Philadelphia on Thursday sued the Department of the Interior after National Park Service staff removed an exhibit on slavery from the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park.
The lawsuit asks for a preliminary injunction to keep the displays up. It says the exhibit was removed “without notice” and “presumably pursuant” to President Trump’s executive order to remove signs and exhibits that “contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times).”
“The interpretive displays relating to enslaved persons at President’s House are an integral part of the exhibit and removing them would be a material alteration to the exhibit,” the lawsuit reads.
Signs acknowledging slavery at the President’s House were dismantled. One Independence Park employee told The Philadelphia Inquirer that his supervisor instructed him to take all of the signs down, saying they were “just following my orders.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) slammed the signs’ removal and said Trump “will take any opportunity to rewrite and whitewash our history.”
Probably won’t win, but at least you try.