The Trump administration is ordering the removal of information of slavery at national parks in an effort to scrub “corrosive ideology,” per the Washington Post.
In 1863, at the height of the Civil War, two Baton Rouge photographers captured an image of a former slave’s horrifically scarred back that shocked white Americans across the Union.
Entitled “Scourged Back,” the famous photo depicts an enslaved man named Peter Gordon with prominent whip scars.
Now that photo is among dozens of exhibits about slavery at several national parks.
This photo, along with other information on slavery, were deemed to violate Trump’s executive order on “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” in March, which ordered the Interior Department to purge national monuments and historic sites of any content that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living”.
The order accused the Biden administration of indulging a “corrosive ideology” that sought to cast the U.S. as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”
National Park Service responds
National Park Service officials have taken exception to various signs and displays at the Harpers Ferry National Historic Park in West Virginia and George Washington’s old house in Philadelphia, where the first U.S. president kept nine slaves.
In response to the Post’s reporting, National Parks Conservation Association Senior Director of Cultural Resources, Alan Spears, released the following statement:
“Great countries don’t hide from their history. We learn from the past and confront it when necessary. The ‘Scourged Back’ photograph shocked the nation and the world with its honest depiction of the vicious nature of slavery. The decision to remove this photograph from the interpretive displays at national parks is as shameful as it is wrong.”
Spears added that every artifact displayed at these parks are meticioulslcy chosen. “Expert historians at the National Park Service spend a great deal of time determining what goes on display at national parks, and what the public can learn from it. This photo and other images and information have been painstakingly selected and contextualized to help park visitors understand the role slavery has played in our history. By contrast, the decision to remove them was rendered in a matter of weeks, with little regard for the complexity of American history or the importance of the Park Service’s hard work.”
“Our national parks have the power to bring people together, to learn about our country’s trials and triumphs alike, and build a better world for future generations. The administration needs to stop meddling in American history at our national parks.”