“History,” Churchill supposedly said, “will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” He did write it, and it was kind until the last decade or so, when it was decided that saving western civilization was nice, but not enough to remove the stain of being an unapologetic British imperialist.
On this side of the Atlantic, there’s been no shortage of argument (good faith and otherwise) about America’s history and national character in the media, in politics, and education. If the discussion is based on new historical evidence or honest reappraisals, our understanding of America is enhanced. But if the discussion is merely a tool to advance an ideology by inserting modern notions and pieties into a world where they were unknown, the effect is to confuse, muddy, and even poison historical understanding.
And, like seemingly everything else, our national parks are caught up in the political/ideological tug of war that “wokeness” inspired.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued a Secretary’s Order instructing the National Park Service to ensure that its historical interpretation is balanced, showing all sides, and eschewing revisionist anti-Americanism on signage, websites, and in lectures. It gets better. Realizing the potential for resistance by those “dedicated public servants protecting our public lands,” it even provides a mechanism for visitors to report signs that are ahistorical, one-sided, or missing important information, in case some get “missed” in Park Service efforts to follow the new directive.
For nearly a decade, the NPS has been considering creating a Black Panther Party National Historical Park in Oakland. President Trump killed the plan in 2017 after outcry from law enforcement groups. But under Biden, plans were revived. A NPR report said it might include “the former Panther party headquarters, locations of the group’s free medical clinics and free children’s breakfast program, and the spot where Newton was murdered. All of it may one day be patrolled by a park ranger in a traditional NPS flat hat.”
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Hopefully, President Trump has again nixed the idea of honoring a murderous, drug-dealing separatist group, kids breakfasts or not.
And maybe he can halt the ruining of parks that do exist – far more important parks. In 2023, the Biden NPS partnered with International Coalition for Sites of Conscience (ICSC), which, according to National Review, is a “nonprofit that works with museums and other protected sites to infuse social-justice messaging into their public presentations.”
In February 2023, employees of Independence National Historical Park – the Philadelphia national park that includes Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin’s house, etc. – had an “Inclusive Story Telling” training seminar given by ICSC. Predictably, the rangers were encouraged to inject identity politics into their tours and presentations. One wrote in an anonymous letter: “indigenous people, women, the working class, Loyalists [to the King], fence-sitters, enslaved people [we aren’t allowed to say “slaves” anymore], free African Americans, the common soldier, non-English speaking people, international participants, non-Christians, political dissidents, and LGBTQ …. As it happens, the tours are only twenty minutes long. The presenter said, 'You could easily cut twenty percent of what you say now.' Who and what will be cut? Washington, Adams, Franklin?"
Why not? A group that wants to “dismantle its [transitional justice] Western foundations and interrogate the institutional racism that has permeated human rights and international justice systems from their inception” isn’t going to be much of a respecter of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
In other parks, the view must compete with signs dedicated to progressive hobbyhorses. One West Virginia park has a sign lamenting the view from a park spot isn’t the same pristine forest as the native Cherokees had, and the haze often obscures the view because of “air pollution, primarily from power plants burning coal.”
The NPS and its allies aren’t simply concerned with disseminating propaganda, they strive to get more diverse people consuming it. Since at least the Obama administration, when he issued a memorandum “to promote diversity and inclusion in public lands and national parks,” the left has scrutinized park-goers, wondering why they were mostly white people; more than 70% of visitors to national parks are white. We shouldn’t know that. We shouldn’t care. But in 2020, National Geographic was publishing articles on making parks “anti-racist.” A researcher from North Carolina State University contends that black people don’t go to National Parks nowadays because of historical racism. The possibility that some people, for whatever reason, aren’t drawn to our national parks doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone. Sometimes, a park is just a park.
A Secretary’s Order is a welcome correction to the NPS’s leftward drift. The park service should be encouraged to tell the truth about our history – warts and all. But warts aren’t the whole story.
Roderick Law is the communications director for the Functional Government Initiative.