Federal District Court Judge Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts has ordered the National Park Service (NPS) to stop removing signs that violate President Trump’s 2025 Executive Order “restoring sanity” to the telling of United States history. The most notable example of compliance with the president’s order was the removal of exhibits about slavery at the President’s House in Philadelphia where George Washington lived. The president had called for the removal of exhibits that cast America in a negative light.
Judge Kelly said that the National Parks play a key role in educating the American people. The decision says that:
“the National Park system also serves as a cornerstone of public
learning, providing rich and informative signs, exhibits, and interpretive waysides on topics
ranging from civil rights to environmentalism. From the echoes of abolition in John Brown’s
Fort in Harpers Ferry, to the genesis of the modern LGBTQ+ civil rights movement at the
Stonewall National Monument, to the retreating ice of Glacier National Park in Alaska, the
National Parks preserve the multifaceted and multi-layered history of our Nation, including the
good, the bad, and the ugly. Often referred to as “America’s largest classroom,” National Parks
serve in that spirit by telling the stories both of those who write history and those who go
unheard. The beauty of history is the unvarnished storytelling of a time gone by and the delivery
of undeniable truths. The Government’s stewardship of these park sites thus carries a
responsibility to present history in full rather than in favored fragments.
…Unfortunately, the Government has disregarded these principles. Under the guise of
promoting American dignity, 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. In recent months, the Government has torn
down exhibits in Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park memorializing the legacy
of people enslaved by the country’s first President; removed signage detailing climate threats at
Fort Sumter in South Carolina, one of the most environmentally endangered sites in the country;
and wiped away descriptions of history and science at countless National Parks across the United
States. Not only does this undermine the integrity of the National Parks; it sets a dangerous
precedent of censorship and sanitization.”
Judge Kelly then recounted where removals of exhibits had been implemented:
“As a result of these efforts, by early 2026, NPS had removed or identified for removal
hundreds of interpretive materials from park sites. By the date of the filing of this action,
Defendants had removed dozens of signs related to climate change, civil rights, and diverse
communities. The potpourri of items removed include those on environmental degradation, such
as:
• Signs at Acadia National Park in Maine discussing the impact of climate change on the
surrounding environment and its costs to the park’s natural resources.
• An exhibit at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge at the Gateway National Recreation Area
in New York concerning climate change.
• Interpretive displays at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, describing how the historic island
fortress that sparked the beginning of the Civil War may be underwater by the end of the
century due to climate change. The display was the product of extensive research by the
NPS and West Carolina University showing the effects of sea level rise, coastal erosion,
flooding, and storm surge on the park.
• Multiple interpretive materials at Glacier National Park in Montana, including signs
providing information about the effect of carbon dioxide emissions and climate change
on glaciers; a sign attributing the sharp increase in wildlife in the American West to
“hotter and drier conditions”; a sign describing the “controversy” regarding wolf hunting;
and a placard titled “Blame It on the Grain,” which “describes the construction of a dam
that created a reservoir in the eastern part of the park to support farming.” Moreover, a
season of the official podcast of Glacier National Park, “Headwaters,” has been taken
down, and a film about the park shown to visitors has been ordered to be stopped.
In addition, Defendants have removed multiple signs involving slavery, abolition, immigration,
labor, women’s suffrage, and civil rights, including:
• A “History Under Construction” exhibit at Muir Woods in Golden Gate National Park in
California, which annotated an existing sign with content on Indigenous history, the role
of women in the Muir Woods conservation movement, and the historical role of NPS
staff in eugenics movements.
• Signs at Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., describing the legacy of Francis G.
Newlands, a congressman and senator from 1893 to 1917, including details about his
white supremacist views.
• Exhibits at the President’s House Site in Independence National Historical Park in
Philadelphia that “examin[ed] the paradox between slavery and freedom in the founding
of the nation” and described the critical role that enslaved people played in the operation
of the home during President Washington’s presidency. One of the removed signs
discussed Ona Judge, a woman the NPS described as “a talented seamstress” who
“became Martha Washington’s personal maid as a teenager” and who escaped
enslavement and evaded recapture • Films on labor history at Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts.
• An exhibit at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge at the Gateway National Recreation Area
in New York describing women’s rights and liberty, as well as a quote stating that there
are components of the country’s history “we hope never to repeat—like slavery,
massacres of Indians, or holding Japanese Americans in wartime camps.”
• A sign at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument in Arizona describing basalt
bubbles because the sign included an image of a visitor holding a Pride flag.
Defendants have also removed multiple interpretive materials dedicated to Native Tribes and
describing the atrocities committed to their communities, such as:
• A sign at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming explaining the complicated history of
Gustavus Cheyney Doane, a key member of an early Yellowstone expedition who had
participated in a massacre of Native Americans.
• Signs at Acadia National Park in Maine describing the importance of Cadillac Mountain
to the Wabanaki people to their culture and heritage.
• Portions of displays at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona characterizing settlers,
cattle ranchers, and tourists as negatively impacting the land for their own benefit and
describing how the federal government claimed Tribal land to establish the park.
In addition to materials that have already been removed, hundreds of others have been flagged
for removal. These include exhibits about slavery and civil rights, such as:
• A sign at Fort Pulaski National Park in Georgia reproducing “The Scourged Back,” an
1863 image of Peter Gordon, a man who was enslaved in Louisiana, with heavy scars
covering his back from whippings received in slavery.
• Over thirty signs at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park in West Virginia, where
abolitionist John Brown led a raid seeking to arm enslaved people for a revolt in 1859.
• A sign at Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site in Colorado describing a family’s
“ownership” of enslaved people.
• Signs at the Bunker Hill Monument in Massachusetts regarding suffrage, abolition,
immigration, and anti-war movements. These signs include quotes from an 1875 letter in
the Archdiocese of Boston’s newspaper stating, “citizens of foreign birth take no second
place”; a 1925 statement from civil rights activist and newspaper editor William Monroe
Trotter stating, “[c]olored Americans were here that day fighting with other patriots, our
own ancestors, of whom we are justly proud and on whom we base our claim for full
liberty and equality as citizens”; and an 1889 statement from abolitionist and suffragist
Lucy Stone in the Women’s Journal stating, “[t]he woman sufferance battle is like that of
Bunker Hill—not won today, but sure to be later. Meantime, Bunker Hill Monument is
our monument.” See Katie Cole & Artemisia Luk, National Park Service to Remove
Quotes About Slavery, Immigration, and Suffrage from Bunker Hill Site, W. Bos. Univ.
Radio (June 5, 2026), https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/06/05/nps-bunker-hillmonument-boston-quote-removal.
• An exhibit at the Kingsley Plantation in the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve
in Florida titled “Freedom Seekers of Timucuan Preserve” that describes stories of
enslaved people who “illustrated the perseverance of the human spirit” as they navigated
“sites of bondage and of escape.”
• A plaque at Virgin Islands National Park commemorating the “slave rebellion that began
on St. John on November 23, 1733.”
• Exhibits at Cane River Creole National Historic Park in Louisiana about enslaved people
who tried to escape but were captured and publicly whipped.
• A sign at Manassas National Battlefield in Virginia that criticized post-Civil War “Lost
Cause” ideology, which denied the central role slavery played in the war.
• Exhibits at Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Sumner and
Glendora, Mississippi and Chicago, Illinois, that “tell[] the story of Emmett Till and his
mother” and were created “in collaboration between the Emmett Till and Mamie TillMobley Institute, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center (ETIC), the Till family, and The
Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.”
• Approximately eighty items at the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail in
Alabama that mark the historic 1965 Voting Rights March from Selma to Montgomery.
• A permanent exhibit at Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park in Kansas
because it mentions “equity.”
The NPS has also flagged interpretive materials reporting on the stories of Indigenous
communities, including:
• A brochure and sign at Glacier National Park in Montana describing the mass slaughter
of the Piegan Blackfeet people.
• A sign at Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site in Colorado describing the forced
removal of a Native Tribe.
• A display at Sitka National Historical Park in Alaska referencing the mistreatment of
Alaskan Natives by missionaries.
• An exhibit at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana describing the
United States being “hungry for gold and land” and breaking promises to Indigenous
groups.
• Signs at Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in Florida about the imprisonment
of Indigenous groups inside the Spanish stone fortress. In reporting these signs, NPS
staff emphasized that these signs were “developed in collaboration with the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.”
• A panel at Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site in Arizona discussing Ganado
Mucho, a Navajo leader known for settling disputes with ranchers.
• A sign at Fort Laramie National Historic Site in Wyoming that references the persecution
of Native Americans.
• An exhibit at Death Valley National Park in Nevada requested by the Timbisha Soshone
Tribe with the phrases “these are our homelands” and “we are still here” to commemorate
the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Homeland Act, which transferred nearly 7,800 acres of
land to the Tribe. Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act, Pub. L. No. 106-423, 114 Stat.
1875 (2000).
Likewise, signage and exhibits providing scientific information at parks across the country have
also been targeted, including:
• A plaque at Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee
explaining how fossil fuels cause air pollution.
• A sign at Cape Hatteras National Seashore titled “The Air We Breathe” discussing the
importance of clean air.
• Signs at Everglades National Park in Florida describing industrialization’s impact on the
wetland ecosystem.
• Signs at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona describing destructive
grazing practices and the accelerating rate of global warming since 1850, as well as a
booklet that talks about endangered turtles and Sonoran pronghorn.
According to an internal NPS database leaked by anonymous civil servants on March 2, 2026,
over five hundred items have been identified for review.”
The judge enjoined removing exhibits in response to the Executive Order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” at park sites
managed by the NPS pending further litigation in this matter and the NPS must restore interpretive material that had already been removed.
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