The peace and tranquility of Muir Woods, just north of San Francisco – home to 500+ acres of old-growth redwoods – make it just about the last place you’d expect to find a fight brewing. “The fact that they’re taking down whole groups of signs about climate change and our nation’s history is disappointing, and embarrassing,” said retired U.S. Park Ranger Lucy ScottWhile it takes a lot to anger Scott, an executive order from President Trump entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” did the trick, calling for signs promoting “divisive narratives” and “corrosive ideology” at national parks to be removed. That included a sign Scott made to inform visitors climate change threatens the redwoods by reducing the fog they rely on for water – a scientific fact. “We’re gonna continue to fight climate change and protect the redwood forests the best that we can,” Scott said. She showed us marks where the climate change sign had been. “The sign lived here happily for almost eight or nine years, and then the sign was taken down a couple weeks ago – ripped off,” she said. Another sign at Muir Woods was changed to conform with a Department of the Interior directive to remove exhibits that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” Originally, the signs had simply added more names to the timeline of the park’s development beyond just those who’d donated the land.”The administration told us to remove the added stories,” Scott said. “They erased that women helped, they erased that there were Native Americans here for the longest time. They were erased.” If Lucy Scott is dismayed, Alan Spears says he’s flat-out disgusted by the signs removed from the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. “George Washington was here. He did good work here. He also thought about how he could protect his property here, and that property included nine enslaved Africans,” Spears said. A historian with the National Parks Conservation Association, Spears took us to where Washington lived in the 1790s – and where panels from a 15-year-old exhibit about nine enslaved people the Father of Our Country brought with him to Philadelphia were taken down in January. He showed us the empty spaces where the signs had been. “This is a representation of the complex, nuanced nature of our history,” he said, “and that’s too much for some people to bear. They want a straightforward narrative that’s uncomplicated.”So, rather than have signs that threaten a straightforward, uncomplicated narrative, Spears said, they “would rather have a brick wall.”While a lawsuit to restore those signs in Philadelphia works through the federal courts, at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in New York City, a sign mentioning “things we hope never to repeat – like slavery, massacre of Native Americans, or holding Japanese Americans in wartime camps” – is among dozens of others taken down nationwide in response to the executive order. “Sunday Morning” has learned an internal government database now lists hundreds of signs, books, and pamphlets flagged for review. “Some of that history might make people who are visiting these sites think critically,” said Spears. “And I think that’s the concern from people on the side who want to restore ‘truth’ and ‘sanity.’ I think they just want a really sterilized experience for people when they come to places like national parks to learn. Sterilized, whitewashed, controlled, censored – all those words apply.”The Department of the Interior told us in a statement: “The liberal media, including CBS, remains more focused on theatrics than sharing the diligent work of the Department of the Interior to ensure Truth and Sanity are restored at our nation’s monuments.” “Sunday Morning” reached out to more than 30 Republican Senators and House Members. None would go on camera to discuss the issue of “problematic” signage. Brenda Hafera, with the Heritage Foundation, supports the review of the park signs. “You can’t only focus on the warts,” she said, “and then you can’t cherry pick.” At Washington’s home, where an entire exhibit focuses on his enslaved household staff, Hafera says that doesn’t leave enough room for the first president’s achievements. A matter of balance, we asked? “Proportionality, yes,” Hafera said.She also said a wildlife center is not the place to discuss racism. “I think it’s very important that not everything is political,” she said, “that if we’re going to a wildlife center, we’re learning about wildlife, and that it’s important for our country to have those opportunities to not be provoked, to make everything political.””A past that didn’t really exist” Chuck Sams was the director of the National Park System under President Biden, and a defender of the sign-writing process that can take up to 18 months. Removing the signs, he says, “is taking us back to a past that didn’t really exist.”You want to make sure you’re telling the most truthful story you possibly can with the best scholarship that’s available,” he said. “It’s not about feeling. It’s literally about, what is the scholarship behind this, and can you back that scholarship up?”The facts are important – all the facts, says this man who once oversaw our national parks and their mission to educate, illuminate, and inspire. “We have to self-examine, in order to make sure that this experiment of our democracy, of our union, can only grow stronger,” Sams said. “America’s always strived to be better. And we can do that by learning from things that we do well, and also things that we didn’t do well.”At any of our 433 national park sites, visitors can now scan a QR code to report signs or brochures they consider problematic. But as we head to our nation’s 250th birthday, people like historian Alan Spears wonder why anyone interested in a more perfect union would want to?”If you are thinking about visiting national parks, but you don’t want to tackle any of these large issues that make you think critically about race and slavery and gender and other things like that, you know, there are hundreds of thousands of places in the United States where you can go,” he said. “Knock yourself out at Six Flags. But don’t ruin it for the rest of us, who have come to rely on national parks as places where we can go for that learning. “We want to maintain their ability, unimpaired,” Spears said, “to be able to talk about the full scope of our history, wonder, warts, and all.” For more info:National Park ServiceDepartment of the InteriorIndependence National Historical Park, PhiladelphiaMuir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Calif.National Parks Conservation AssociationFormer National Park Service Director Chuck SamsThe Heritage FoundationAcadia on My MindPhotos courtesy of the Philadelphia Inquirer Story produced by Sara Kugel. Editor: Carol Ross.
Signs of the times: Removing stories of America’s past from our national parks
