The Interior Department plans to remove or cover up all “inappropriate content” at national parks and sites by Sept. 17 and is asking the park visitors to report any “negative” information about past or living Americans, according to internal documents.
It’s a move that historians worry could lead to the erasure of history involving gay and transgender figures, civil rights struggles and other subjects deemed improper by the Trump administration.
Staff at the National Park Service, which is part of the Interior Department, were instructed to post QR codes and signs at all 433 national parks, monuments and historic sites by Friday asking visitors to flag anything they think should be changed, from a plaque to a park ranger’s tour to a film at a visitor’s center.
Leaders at the park service would then review concerns about anything that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times),” according to slides presented this week at a meeting with park superintendents. By Sept. 17, “all inappropriate content” would be removed or covered, according to the presentation.
The signs already are up at many national parks, including sites that commemorate difficult periods in American history like the Minidoka National Historic Site in Idaho, where more than 13,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated after being forcibly removed from their homes without due process during World War II.
“Our history isn’t always perfect,” said Theresa Pierno, the president of the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit group that supports national parks and opposes the planned changes. “How do you talk about Martin Luther King without talking about racism?”
Ms. Pierno said she thought Americans who visit historic sites want to know all the facts. “We have faith as Americans that we can tell these stories, even the hard-to-tell stories, and we learn from them,” she said.
President Trump has sought to root out “wokeness” and change the way American history is told. An executive order he signed in March entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” directed the removal of “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution museums.
Over the past six months Mr. Trump has tried to take over cultural institutions like the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Library of Congress. Federal agencies have removed or changed thousands of government websites related to issues like hate crimes, diversity, gay rights and environmental justice.
According to the National Parks Conservation Association, dozens of federal web pages have been scrubbed or altered. They include: “L.G.B.T.Q. America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History.” That site, which has been removed from the National Park Service website, featured an academic study that, among other things, identified people, places, and events that shaped the modern L.G.B.T.Q. rights movement.
The Interior Department also in February removed a web page that included information about the abolitionist leader Harriet Tubman. The agency restored the page in April, saying the changes had been made without approval.
In his executive order, Mr. Trump demanded a review of whether monuments, memorials and other Interior Department information and content “perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.”
The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But an order issued by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the goal of the reviews was to “remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage.” The agency has not said how much the changes would cost.
Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities.
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