Lincoln Heritage Museum in Springfield Responds to Trump’s Call for End to “Woke” Coverage in History Museums

President Trump issued a Truth Social post on Tuesday attacking the Smithsonian and many other history museums as bastions of “wokeness.” Here is what the president said:

 

In Springfield, Illinois yesterday the Lincoln Heritage Museum issued a statement explaining what the purpose of history museums is. Here is what they said:

An August 19 Truth Social post relayed the intention of the Executive Branch of our government to begin a review of the exhibits in the Smithsonian. That said post criticized museums across the country for failing to portray the “brightness” of America enough. The post also urged us citizens to talk about it more, so here we go.

Museums are centers of public history, who have a deliberate purpose to connect audiences with the past, so as to learn from both the successes and failures of that past and ponder the larger questions of history and how they apply to our world today. Museums are not places meant to make us feel comfortable nor to serve as echo chambers for a narrative so that we can feel good about ourselves and our history. They are not places to rest upon biases if those biases don’t possess historical accuracy. Museums have an ethical commitment to the historical truth, whether that truth be painful or pleasant. They should challenge our conventional thinking and beckon us to remake ourselves and our world around us a better place.

Slavery was a wretched stain on our republic, and we don’t shy from that reality at the Lincoln Heritage Museum. The founding period proved to be inconsistent in its commitment to liberty for all, and we don’t deny that at the Lincoln Heritage Museum. Abraham Lincoln was an exemplar of character, but he made mistakes and possessed human flaws, and we address that at the Lincoln Heritage Museum. If slavery was not such a moral evil, Lincoln would never have called for a new birth of freedom.

Indeed, there are many aspects of our history to celebrate and to commemorate. There is much in our nation’s annals to applaud. That can be found in our Lincoln Heritage Museum, at the Smithsonian, and at museums all across the country. There is plenty about our history which can instill patriotic pride in all of us. But that pride often derives from reading about individuals who suffered, fought, resisted, and endured against the formidable and powerful forces and prevailed – and that history is all too often misconstrued and misunderstood as “woke.”

In the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, the Lincoln Heritage Museum pledges to continue exhibiting and showcasing our history with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, so that we as a nation may strive on to finish the work we are in and to bind up the nation’s wounds.

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