At Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina, the Trump administration is set to review, and possibly remove or alter, signs about how climate change is causing sea levels to rise.
At Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, the administration will soon decide whether to take down exhibits on the brutality of slavery.
And at Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in Florida, Trump officials are scrutinizing language about the imprisonment of Native Americans inside the Spanish stone fortress.
According to internal documents reviewed by The New York Times, employees of the National Park Service have flagged descriptions and displays at scores of parks and historic sites for review in connection with President Trump’s directive to remove or cover up materials that “inappropriately disparage Americans.”
In an executive order in March, the president instructed the Park Service to review plaques, films and other materials presented to visitors at 433 sites around the country, with the aim of ensuring they emphasize the “progress of the American people” and the “grandeur of the American landscape.”
Employees had until last week to flag materials that could be changed or deleted, and the Trump administration said it would remove all “inappropriate” content by Sept. 17, according to the internal agency documents. The public also has been asked to submit potential changes.
The directive on national parks is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to promote a more positive view of the nation’s history. In his executive order, the president also took aim at the Smithsonian Institution, claiming that it had promoted “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”
Critics have warned that these moves could lead to the erasure of difficult periods of American history, as well as contributions made by people of color, gay and transgender figures, women and other marginalized groups.
“The national parks were established to tell the American story, and we shouldn’t just tell all the things that make us look wonderful,” said Dan Wenk, a former superintendent of Yellowstone National Park. “We have things in our history that we are not proud of anymore.”
Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, said many Park Service employees are obeying the executive order even though they disagree with it.
“Park staff are in a bind here,” Ms. Brengel said. “If they don’t comply with this directive, they could lose their jobs.”
Elizabeth Peace, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, the parent agency of the Park Service, said the Trump administration’s move “is not about rewriting the past.”
“Interpretive materials that disproportionately emphasize negative aspects of U.S. history or historical figures, without acknowledging broader context or national progress, can unintentionally distort understanding rather than enrich it,” Ms. Peace said in a statement. “Our goal is to foster honest, respectful storytelling that educates visitors while honoring the complexity of our nation’s shared journey.”
Several Republican lawmakers have applauded the administration’s efforts to purge the federal government of “woke” initiatives that portray historical events or figures as racist, sexist or otherwise flawed.
“Our monuments should celebrate our founders and tell the story of what makes America great, not push woke talking points to please radical activists,” Senator Jim Banks, Republican of Indiana, said in a statement.
Already, the Interior Department has taken down sticky notes that Park Service employees used to annotate an exhibit at Muir Woods National Monument in California.
The sticky notes, which park staff added in 2021, were an attempt to present a more comprehensive history of the monument. They highlighted the Indigenous people who originally cared for the land, as well as the role of women in the 1908 creation of Muir Woods.
They also argued that while “influential, philanthropic white men” are frequently credited with preserving the site, problematic aspects of their legacies are often overlooked. For instance, John Muir, the famous naturalist for whom the park is named, used racist language in writings about African Americans and Native Americans.
The notes were removed last week pending a review in connection with the executive order, according to Joshua Winchell, a spokesman for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which includes Muir Woods.
“As we implement the order, we will review all signs in the park as well as all the public input we receive about the signs,” Mr. Winchell said in an email.
In addition to reshaping the way the parks present history, the executive order could result in the removal of information about the risks that climate change poses in the present day. At Cape Hatteras National Seashore, for instance, the internal documents show that a Park Service employee asked the Trump administration to review a sign that explains how rising seas are threatening the habitat of wild horses.
“We do not believe it to be in violation, but would like someone to review if messaging of climate change and sea level rise reduces the focus on the grandeur, beauty and abundance,” the employee wrote.
As global warming has caused ice sheets and glaciers to melt, water levels around Cape Hatteras have risen by about one foot in the last century, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They are projected to rise by another 10 to 14 inches by 2050.
“From a scientific perspective, there’s no question that a warming planet is generating that long-term sea level rise,” said Robert Young, who directs the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University. “I guess you could have a discussion as to what degree it is the National Park Service’s job to point that out.”
But Patrick Gonzalez, who served as principal climate change scientist at the Park Service during Mr. Trump’s first term, said that is precisely the agency’s job.
“Communicating the science of climate change helps to educate the public on complex scientific issues, and it provides incentives for people to live more sustainably and reduce their carbon pollution,” said Dr. Gonzalez, who is now with the University of California, Berkeley.
At Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which straddles Tennessee and North Carolina, park officials have also flagged for review a plaque about the harm that air pollution poses to plants and animals. The plaque notes that “fossil fuel-fired power plants, motor vehicles and industry are the primary sources of these pollutants.”
The bulk of the content identified for review in the internal documents addresses the struggle for equality of Black Americans, from slavery to the civil rights movement.
“Text addresses slavery as the primary cause of the American Civil War,” one Park Service official noted of a plaque at the Stones River National Battlefield in Tennessee, the site of one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Civil War.
“This is both historically correct and legislatively mandated, but we ask for further review to confirm it is aligned” with the executive order, the official wrote.
At Cane River Creole National Historical Park in Louisiana, a park official noted an exhibit about slaves who tried to escape but were captured. The official was concerned because the exhibit identified the enslavers by name and mentioned that returned slaves were publicly whipped.
Rolonda Teal, an anthropologist who has studied the Cane River park, said that Congress established it in 1994 to preserve the history of two plantations that housed hundreds of slaves for over 200 years.
“If you don’t talk about the names of the slaves, the names of the enslavers, the whipping of the slaves, then you’re only telling white history in America,” Dr. Teal said.
“Why would you visit a plantation if you don’t want to hear the whole story, and how could it be a plantation if there weren’t slaves?” she added. “So that’s the ridiculousness of it all.”
On the National Mall in Washington, a sign labeled “Working Waterfront” describes what had been a 19th century wharf and a landing spot for goods moving along a Potomac River tributary. “You might hear the shouts of dockworkers, many of them enslaved people until the end of the Civil War,” the sign says. A park employee called attention to it, asking, “Is the word ‘enslaved’ OK here?”
And at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, also in Washington, a park official raised concerns about books sold at the gift shop, writing, “Not sure if they’re all considered disparaging, but they are about either Malcolm X or Freedom Riders or slavery.”
Clayborne Carson, who directed the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University and helped design the memorial, said the concerns about the books underscored a longstanding inability to confront racism in America.
“It’s sad to see a lot of things I thought would be resolved in the past have kind of come back,” he said, adding, “I don’t know how you can have a better future without looking honestly at the past.”
At the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, park employees flagged an exhibit panel that discussed the bell’s travels across the country during the post-Reconstruction period. The panel “calls out the systemic and violent racism and sexism that existed at the time,” employees noted.
And at the nearby Independence National Historical Park, where the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were debated and signed, park staff raised concerns about an exhibit that memorializes nine slaves whom George Washington had brought from Mount Vernon. One panel emphasizes the intentional brutality of slaveholders, which included whippings, beatings, torture and rape.
Other content flagged for review addresses the federal government’s fraught relationship with Native American tribes.
At San Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in Florida, a park employee highlighted a panel on the imprisonment of Plains Indian tribes in the late 19th century. The panel noted that the U.S. Army had sent 74 prisoners from the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho and Caddo tribes to the fort after the Red River War, which sought to force Native Americans onto reservations.
“Text of panel needs review for language referring to tribes having choice of extinction or assimilation,” the employee wrote. “Language of U.S. Government giving the ‘choice’ of extinction could be considered negative toward the United States.”
Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, said the president is insisting on a narrow vision of America that he and his followers find most comfortable.
“President Trump is a storyteller and I think he wants a vision of history that he believes matches his understanding of the country,” Dr. Zelizer said.
Documents detailing the Park Service’s internal communications plans, also reviewed by The Times, instruct agency officials to respond to queries by saying that the Trump administration is focused on “historical accuracy.”