UPDATE | National Park Service Draws Criticism For Removing Interpretive Materials

Editor's note: This updates with a call from more than 100 organizations for the National Park Service not to erase history. 

A top National Park Service official drew condemnation, as did Republicans on the House federal lands subcommittee, over the reported removal of interpretative materials addressing enslaved history from some units of the National Park System.

Meanwhile, a coalition of more than 100 conservation groups from across the country on Friday called on the Park Service not to "whitewash" history the agency long has explained in the parks.

At issue during the subcommittee hearing Thursday was a 19th-century photograph of the scar-riddled back of an enslaved man reportedly taken down at Fort Pulaski National Monument in Georgia.

Rep. Jared Huffman, a Democrat from California, chastised his Republican colleagues for not speaking out about the removal, and focused his criticism on Mike Caldwell, the Park Service's associate director of park planning, facilities, and lands.

"We need to bring up this related issue affecting our parks and public lands that for some wild and unthinkable reason, seems to have become partisan right now. The Trump administration is trying to censor the history told in our national parks and historic sites. This has been happening, they have set it in motion,” Huffman said. “My colleagues on the other side of the aisle throughout this conversation just look the other way and are completely silent – I would argue, completely complicit in what is happening right now. 

"...  the administration is barreling forward with its efforts to undermine how our parks tell the story of the American experience. This is not okay," he added. "We've got enough to fight about enough to disagree with in terms of policy. We cannot allow truth to become a partisan fight where one side is trying to literally erase truth from the national discourse. Just this week, Trump ordered the Park Service to remove signs and exhibits relating to slavery, including this iconic photograph which shows the atrocious violence committed against slaves. What the hell is going on here? That someone in this administration directed this photo to be removed from a display?"

Huffman then asked Caldwell, who was there to testify on legislation involving national parks, why the Park Service called for removal of the photograph, known as "Scourged Back."

Caldwell did not directly answer the question, saying the Park Service was still working to implement Interior Secretary Doug Burgum's order that materials that "disparage" Americans be removed from parks. But he pointed out that part of the order called for public participation in the process to identify what might be objectionable and suggested the congressman follow up with specific questions outlining his concerns.

"I'm going to be very specific," replied Huffman. "Who issued that order?"

"I have not been involved in issuing any secretarial orders related to this one," answered Caldwell. "We can get back to you."

Huffman then asked Caldwell, a NPS career employee for 30+ years, how he felt about the photo's removal and censorship of park materials.

Caldwell again did not directly answer the question, saying the Park Service did not order its removal. The Park Service official also could not say who specifically was working to review materials raised by the public and park employees.

Committee Chairman Tom Tiffany, R-Wisconsin, then pointed out, without specifics, that the Biden administration during its days in office ordered the removal of some monuments and statues "that could be deemed controversial."

"... But that is history," Tiffany continued. "It is controversial at times and we should not whitewash it. But what we saw in the previous four years of the Trump administration was an erasing of history."

The chairman then pointed out that "the party that I belong to and that the president belongs to was formed in 1854 to end slavery. It was the original single-issue-party that was put in place to end slavery, and we accomplished that in the United States of America. And we still stand by that, as Republicans, believing that we should be a color-blind society."

Before the committee ended the hearing Rep. Joe Neguse, the ranking Democrat from Colorado, again pressed Caldwell on whether the Scourged Back photo had actually been removed from Fort Pulaski.

"Are you telling us that this photo was not taken down at Fort Pulaski?" asked Neguse. "Because I've seen nothing from your department that says that the photo was not taken down."

Again Caldwell deflected, saying he was unaware of "any instructions that were provided to Fort Pulaski or anywhere else," but did not say whether he knew if the photograph was still on display.

Neguse then asked Tiffany if he was OK with the photo's removal.

"You spent a great deal of time talking about Reconstruction and the Republican Party and its role during the Civil War and so on and so forth," said Neguse. "So it should be pretty easy for all of us to say photos like these should not be taken down. It's offensive what the Department of Interior is doing right now. I find it deeply offensive."

Tiffany did not respond.

On Friday, the Coalition for Outdoor Renaming and Education (CORE) released a letter it sent to Burgum urging him to rescind his secretarial order calling for a review of interpretive materials in the parks.

"This order undermines the Department of the Interior’s responsibility to steward not only the landscapes we all share but also the layered histories embedded within them. As part of that responsibility, the Department entrusts the National Park Service, one of the nation’s leading storytellers and its other agencies, to interpret and present those histories with honesty, depth, and care," reads part of the letter (attached).

“The way we tell history on our public lands, parks and historic sites has always evolved. Over time, interpretation has grown to expand and include voices and experiences once left out, creating a fuller picture of who we are. As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, this is not the moment to turn back,” said Gerry Seavo James, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Outdoors for All campaign and policy chair for CORE’s steering committee. “Protecting our public lands means protecting that progress, and ensuring these places tell the truth that connects us across communities and generations.”

The National Association of Tribal Preservation Officers also signed off on the letter, with Dr. Valerie Grussing, its executive director, saying that, [N]o one benefits from sanitized history. We can only truly do justice to American history by telling the full story, instead of erasing evidence of the pain and suffering Indigenous peoples experienced at the hands of the United States Government and other colonial powers. NATHPO calls on the Administration to rescind this order, restore signage in any place where erasure has already occurred, and work with Tribal Nations and any other descendant communities to ensure we tell this nation's history in its entirety."