WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, in a hearing of the Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) Committee, Senator Angus King (I-ME), co-chair of the National Parks Subcommittee, laid out his concerns over the rewriting and whitewashing of history within the National Park Service by the Trump Administration. During his opening remarks, he noted that while it is important to celebrate the triumphs of America, it is just as crucial to recognize — and learn from — our mistakes as a nation. Earlier this year, the Administration moved to scrub signs from national park and historic sites that could cast a “negative light” on American history. Additionally, the Administration announced this past week that Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Juneteenth would be removed as free entry days and replaced with President Trump’s birthday.

Senator King began, “I'm also worried and concerned about the effort to whitewash our history - to rewrite history within the National Park system. Our history is a country of 250 years. We have had triumphs. We have had great, prideful moments. We have had accomplishments, heroism, a lot to be proud of, relish, and learn about. But we also have some dark parts of our history. Like any history. We are not too excited about those, but they have to be addressed. Slavery, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, segregation, the treatment of Native Americans in our history. Those are things we can't avoid –we can't forget — and we don't want to forget. I recently finished a biography of the Roman statesman Cicero, and he had something that stuck with me. He said, “to not know your history, to not know history is to live your whole life as a child.” In other words, you are giving away a lot of human knowledge if you don't understand history. These chapters in our history, which we aren't proud of, we have to understand and learn from them and never repeat them.

“A couple of years ago I was at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. I met a young man, and we were chatting. He shared something that was amazing that touched exactly on what I'm talking about today. He said when he was in high school in Germany he was required to go to a concentration camp. He was required to study the Holocaust. Talk about a dark portion of a nation's history. We are doing just the opposite. We are telling people and young people who go to our parks, ‘We don't want to bother you about slavery. It was uncomfortable. It might make you feel uncomfortable.’ We need to learn from our history, so that we learn from it and we don't repeat it,” said Senator King.

Senator King continued his remarks, observing that the United States should follow Germany’s lead and teach historical truths that might be difficult to reckon with. He observed that an early tactic used by authoritarian regimes is to remove signs or displays showcasing dark moments in history in order to change citizens’ understanding of what happened.

“The administration is trying to rewrite history, and when you compare it to Germany where young people are required to learn about their dark history because they don't want to repeat it, because they want to learn something from it, and we should take a lesson from that. At Fort Polaski national monument in Georgia, the departments ordered the removal of the scourged back photograph-you’ve probably all seen it-of the slave with the awful scars on his back where he had been whipped. That was removed. For what purpose? Are we trying to erase the awful legacy of slavery, that it occurred? At Harpers Ferry the department targeted the removal of several displays on slavery and the abolitionist movement. Harpers Ferry! That’s why it was a monument! It was all about John Brown and slavery and abolition. To remove a display about slavery at Harpers Ferry is like removing model rockets from Cape Kennedy. It is astonishing that they should do such a thing. The Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge in New York, they removed signage which addressed Japanese internment and the forced dispossession of Native people from their traditional homelands. This does not contribute to our citizens' understanding of their history and appreciation of their history. It doesn't change the history. It doesn't change what happened. It only changes our citizens' understanding of those things. This is what happens under authoritarian governments. If you go back in history, authoritarian governments, one of the things they try to do is change their history, whitewash it, they change the story,” concluded Senator King.

As a lifelong advocate for conservation and Chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Senator King is among the Senate’s most prominent voices advocating for conservation. Senator King helped lead the passage the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) into law; the legislation that included the Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF). Because of his work, in 2020, Senator King was awarded the inaugural National Park Foundation (NPF) “Hero” Award. Since the creation of the LRF, Senator King has pushed park leaders to discuss funding maintenance efforts, maintaining a sufficient NPS workforce, and managing growing park visitation. Recently, Senator King pressed a Department of the Interior.

Senator King’s work on the National Parks Subcommittee is the culmination of more than four decades of work on land conservation efforts in Maine, including helping to establish the Land for Maine’s Future program in 1987 and supporting extensive conservation projects during his time as Governor. Under King’s leadership in his eight years as Maine governor, he put more Maine land under conservation than in the state’s 175 year history.

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