So You Don't Think Trump & Company Are Racists?

They are removing references to anything about Black people and slavery.
They are trying to rewrite history — to whitewash it.

US National Park Service removes slavery exhibit in Philadelphia

Reuters

By Kanishka Singh

January 23, 2026

U.S. National Park Service staff have removed a slavery exhibit from a Philadelphia historic site in line with President Donald Trump's claims, rejected by civil rights groups, of "anti-American ideology" at historical and cultural institutions.

The exhibit was at the President's House Site in Independence National Historical Park, where the first U.S. president, George Washington, lived when the Pennsylvania city was the nation's capital. It described the history of slavery and Washington's ownership of enslaved people.

The outdoor exhibit was dismantled and removed on Thursday, according to media footage and activists.

"The President has directed federal agencies to review interpretive materials to ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values," the Interior Department, which includes the park service, told Reuters in a statement responding to a query on the exhibit's removal.

I don’t know about you, but “alignment with shared national values” does not include racism — at least not my values. That may be true for Trump’s family values. (Did you know Trump's father got arrested at a KKK rally in New York City?)

The Republican president alarmed civil rights advocates last year with an executive order that said he was fighting against "a false revision of history.” He has complained about what he casts as excessive focus on "how bad Slavery was."

You see in Trump's minds, enslaved people loved being enslaved — getting food and shelter, sitting around the fire praising their masters and singing Kumbaya.

MS Now wrote back in September,

Trump admin reportedly removes slavery history from national parks

The administration's efforts to censor references to slavery and racist inequality appear to have ramped up with the reported removal of several signs and exhibits.

By Ja'han Jones

Donald Trump’s war on history appears to have widened, with The Washington Post reporting that his administration has ordered the removal of multiple signs and exhibits at national parks related to the history of slavery.

The Post reported that these moves are the result of a deranged executive order Trump signed in March, in which he ordered the Interior Department to whitewash materials at national parks and other federal sites that recount the factual story of American inequality — which the order called “corrosive ideology.” I’ve written previously about the disturbing parallels between Trump’s attacks on museums and those waged by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.

According to the Post:

The Trump administration has ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks, according to four people familiar with the matter, including a historic photograph of a formerly enslaved man showing scars on his back.

That historic photo — known as “The Scourged Back” — shows Peter Gordon, an enslaved man who was whipped after attempting to escape. As the Metropolitan Museum of Art notes, it’s one of the most famous Civil War-era portraits ever taken. Such accurate depictions of the brutality of slavery evidently run afoul of Trump’s blissful ignorance, given his gripe that Smithsonian museums focus too much on “how bad Slavery was.”

“The Scourged Back” depicts the scarred back
 of escaped slave Peter Gordon in Louisiana in 1863.
McPherson & Oliver / National Gallery of Art

Trump’s Ministry of Truth is rewriting history — not just about slavery, but about us, the trans community.

Under Trump, references to the trans community were removed from Stonewall. Without trans people, there would have been no Stonewall.

Under Trump’s so-called “Restoring American History” policy, the Smithsonian and the National Park Service were ordered to review exhibits and materials that “inappropriately disparage Americans.” This policy has been used to justify removing or altering content about slavery, Indigenous history, civil rights struggles, transgender history, and other marginalized communities.

This isn’t about patriotism.

It’s about erasure and racism.