We Are Killing Them All Over Again

We Are Killing Them All Over Again': Critics Say History Is Being Erased as Trump Reshapes Narratives at National Parks

By Kaanita Iyer | Updated May 2026

When tourists visit a Grand Teton National Park visitor center this spring, a marker that once stood beneath a statue of Gustavus Cheyney Doane will no longer be there. The placard had asked visitors: "How do we acknowledge the good and bad of a figure?" — noting that Doane's expedition helped establish the first national park, but also that he helped lead a massacre of at least 173 members of the Piegan Blackfeet, an act he bragged about throughout his life.

Its removal was cited in a federal lawsuit against the Department of the Interior as one of many changes wrought by President Donald Trump's March 2025 executive order — titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" — directing the agency to "take action" against public content that "inappropriately disparage Americans past or living."

The Trump administration argues the order ensures that American history is portrayed in a positive light. Critics say it is erasing essential elements of the nation's past.

"We are killing them all over again," said Tom Rodgers, a member of the Blackfeet Nation who is known as One Who Rides His Horse East, referring to the victims of the Doane massacre. He called it one of the "most despicable historical experiences" for Native Americans.

"I think we're at a point in our country where people think that if you tell half the truth, you've told all the truth, and that in itself, is a lie," he said. "It's Orwellian."


A Sweeping Cultural Overhaul

Since March 2025, the Trump administration has removed or altered hundreds of signs and exhibits in national parks across the country, covering topics ranging from climate change and pollution to slavery and Indigenous history.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum followed Trump's executive order with his own directive on May 20, launching implementation within the National Park Service (NPS). The NPS then escalated its actions in January 2026, with interpretive signs — detailing contributions of historically marginalized populations, atrocities against particular communities, and the long-term impacts of scientific developments — either removed or flagged for removal.

As the country heads into peak tourist season, evidence of this unprecedented cultural overhaul will be on display at parks around the country. The removal of the marker at Grand Teton is one of at least 45 changes tracked by Save Our Signs, an advocacy group that documents changes to National Park Service displays. An activist-built interactive map now catalogs 863 signs, exhibits, and publications on the Interior Department's potential chopping block, noting which are scheduled for removal, flagged for review, or restored by court order.


What Has Been Removed

The scope of changes spans the country and touches on many chapters of American history:

Grand Teton National Park: The sign contextualizing Doane's role in the Piegan Blackfeet massacre was removed.
Muir Woods National Monument (California): Signs about the contributions of Native Americans and women to the Muir Woods conservation movement were removed, including discussion of the historical role of Park Service staff in eugenics movements. A note informing visitors that John Muir once used racist language in his diaries and ignored "the genocide they survived" was also taken down.
Glacier National Park and Grand Canyon National Park: The Trump administration ordered the removal of more interpretive signage referencing climate change and Native American history at both parks. At the Grand Canyon, portions of displays characterizing settlers, cattle ranchers, and tourists as negatively impacting the land — and describing how federal officials claimed tribal land to establish the park — were reportedly removed.
Acadia National Park (Maine): Officials reportedly removed signs discussing the Wabanaki people and the significance of Cadillac Mountain — known to the Wabanaki as Wapuwoc — to their culture and heritage, as well as a sign describing the effects of climate change on the park.
Fort Sumter National Monument (South Carolina): A sign detailing how rising seas could inundate the fort's historic walls and parade ground was removed entirely. The Interior Department claimed the old sign "was not grounded in real science."
Lowell National Historical Park (Massachusetts): Park Service officials stopped showing two films on labor history to "ensure compliance" with the Interior Secretary's order.
Stonewall National Monument (New York): The park's webpages were scrubbed of any mention of the transgender community, including pages about activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, key players in the Stonewall Uprising who later founded one of the first LGBTQ youth shelters in America.
Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail (Alabama): Approximately 80 items were flagged for removal, including materials describing key moments in the civil rights movement.
Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park (Kansas): The permanent exhibit was flagged partly because it contains the word "equity."
President's House Site, Philadelphia: An exhibit recognizing individuals enslaved by George Washington was ordered altered. A federal court later blocked the NPS from proceeding with replacement panels, ruling that the new version sanitized the exhibition.
George Mason Memorial, Washington D.C.: A display on the founding father was revised to remove references to him "paradoxically" owning slaves despite championing "individual rights."
The Department of Interior also ordered removal of a famous 1863 photograph titled "Scourged Back," which depicts an enslaved man named Peter with prominent whip scars, from at least one national park.


Inside the Review Process

Following Trump's executive order, the Interior Department ordered a broad review of exhibits, films, pamphlets, and signs at national parks. Park staff were required to inventory signage, interpretation materials, and gift shop books, and were also directed to put up signs at all parks asking visitors to use a QR code to report any "negative" information about past or living Americans.

In the nearly 200 visitor submissions NPS received in the first days after the solicitations were posted, however, no single submission pointed to examples of improper signage. Instead, visitors implored the administration not to erase U.S. history and praised agency staff for improving their experiences.

According to an internal NPS database seen by CNN, hundreds of displays were flagged for review. The flagged content revealed how broadly the guidance was interpreted. One note on a display about the killing of abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy asked: "Does this denigrate the murderers?" A panel at a National Park in St. Croix was flagged for discussing "the slave trade and its connection to the sugar industry which some may find disparaging."

The Interior Department contended the database was "edited before being inappropriately and illegally released," but did not specify what was changed. A source familiar with the database confirmed its accuracy to CNN, saying changes were only in formatting.


Impact on Staff and Visitors

According to data from NPS Integrated Resource Management Applications, from January to October 2025, total yearly park recreation visits decreased for the first time in more than five years, with monthly visits lower in nearly every month of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024.

Kym Hall, a former NPS regional director who retired in October 2024, said she has heard from current staff that they are burned out and demoralized. "That's the recurring theme … 'This isn't what I signed up for because this isn't who we are as an organization,'" she said. Rangers have grown cautious about speaking openly, with some becoming reluctant to discuss the parks for fear that anything they say could be misinterpreted.


Advocates and Experts Push Back

The Sierra Club filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for refusing to release information related to its efforts to erase history on public lands, arguing that information received from the Bureau of Reclamation and Bureau of Land Management reveals the public clearly opposes these efforts.

Historians argue that the sign changes represent institutionalized state propaganda rather than legitimate historical correction. One historian noted: "What I'm seeing from the Trump administration has nothing to do with correcting inaccuracies. It really has to do with rejecting any historical narrative that complicates the idea of a triumphalist American story."

Alan Spears, a senior director at the National Parks Conservation Association, told CNN: "This notion of needing to restore truth and sanity to American history is one of the largest red herrings in American history. It's trying to resolve a problem that doesn't really exist, that never really existed."

Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association, was blunt: "If our country erases the darker chapters of our history, we will never learn from our mistakes."

Democrats in Congress have sent repeated letters to the Interior Department demanding clarity — letters which, according to the offices of Sen. Martin Heinrich and Reps. Sharice Davids and Jared Huffman, have received no response.


The Administration's Defense

The White House defended the removals. Spokesperson Taylor Rogers told CNN that Trump "is honoring our country's extraordinary heritage and restoring a sense of national pride," and that the president "has put an end to the radical left's divisive and inaccurate characterization of our nation's history."

The Interior Department maintained: "This effort is not about removing history. It is about ensuring taxpayer-funded displays present history in a balanced, factual and appropriate manner that reflects America's full story, including its extraordinary achievements and its challenges."


The Meaning of It All

The controversy unfolds as America marks its 250th birthday — a milestone Rep. Jared Huffman called an opportunity for honesty. "Actual history is getting whitewashed and censored from national parks and museums," he said. "We should honor the 250th anniversary of America by telling the truth."

Tom Rodgers, the Blackfeet Nation member who helped rename Mount Doane in Yellowstone to First Peoples Mountain, said those in power now will not hold it forever. "There will be a time and a place of our choosing to rectify this," he said.

"We do great damage to ourselves, our own souls when we seek to control a narrative that is not true."