Last week, National Park Service (NPS) staff were ordered to remove displays about the people enslaved by George Washington at the President’s House, a part of Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. In a matter of minutes, years of dedicated scholarship and community involvement vanished to comply with and implement an executive order promoting a narrow, inaccurate version of America’s story.
This is just the latest step in the White House’s continued assault on the history sector. At NPS sites, military museums, the Smithsonian Institution, and more, the administration is arbitrarily undermining the expertise and integrity of thousands of federal history practitioners while casting an intimidating chill across the entire history field.
Worse, the administration is not just purging historical content it finds unappealing—in many instances, they are replacing this content with incomplete or false information in service of a radically exclusive vision of our country’s past, present, and future. This would be damaging at any time, but especially so just months from the nation’s 250th anniversary—a once-in-a-generation opportunity to learn from the full story of our past.
AASLH strongly condemns the erasure at the President’s House in Philadelphia and the White House’s ongoing attacks on public access to whole and honest history. Willfully distorting our history ignores the wishes of the majority of Americans, hinders their ability to think for themselves, and violates their trust in history institutions. On the eve of our nation’s 250th anniversary, local, state, and national history organizations must oppose this drive toward censorship and disinformation and instead continue to provide the knowledge, skills, and connections essential to a thriving democracy.
