North Bay Lawmaker Calls Out Trump for ‘Whitewashing’ National Parks

Bay Area Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Marin, has condemned President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to force national parks to remove historical material from public display as censorship and “pure propaganda.”

Huffman, who serves as ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, used his opening remarks at Thursday’s committee hearing to criticize the Trump administration’s attempts to “whitewash” national parks through a March executive order: “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

This directive instructs staff working at all National Park Service locations to review any materials that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living,” and to submit them to the federal government for potential removal.

“The Trump administration is trying to censor the history told in our national parks and historic sites,” Huffman told the committee. “Now we find ourselves deeper and deeper into this ‘cancel culture’ dystopia.”

Huffman also derided his Republican colleagues in Congress for not speaking out about the order, saying they “just looked the other way.” They are “completely complicit in what is happening right now,” he said.

Since the March order, parks staff have been left scrambling to review thousands of written materials from waysigns, interpretive signs and exhibits to brochures, films screened within park buildings and even merchandise sold in park kiosks and bookstores.

Many advocates in California have expressed fears that removing historical materials from parks could erase certain narratives, including the state’s Indigenous history.

‘Pure propaganda’

In his remarks on Thursday, Huffman cited The Washington Post’s report that the Trump administration had ordered one unnamed national park to remove the famous 1863 photograph known as ‘The Scourged Back’ from display.

The image, which depicts the back of a formerly enslaved man scarred by the violence of slavery, is credited with impacting public opinion of the Confederacy.

“Removing these exhibits from places that teach and interpret our history is not patriotic,” Huffman said. “It is pure propaganda. It’s un-American.”

One of the first removals as a result of the order was at Muir Woods National Monument, where an exhibit was taken down in July. The exhibit, called “History Under Construction,” was created in 2021 to add context to the park’s history, highlighting the foundational roles of women and Indigenous people in its creation as well as the often racist and violent past of Muir Woods’ more notable founders.

Over the past few weeks, other parks across the country have received notices from the Trump administration that the materials submitted by employees have been flagged for removal. The notices give parks staff two weeks to make a plan to remove, alter or cover the information.

Huffman co-authored a letter back in August in protest of Trump’s executive order, requesting more information about who within the federal government would ultimately decide what gets taken down from National Parks. But he told KQED that he has not received a response.

“There’s no way this happens at any other time in American history,” he said in an interview with KQED earlier this month. “This administration thinks they don’t have to talk with or even deal with Congress.

“Frankly, it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen in this country,” he said.