Trump administration is erasing history and science at national parks, lawsuit argues; AP, February 17, 2026

MATTHEW DALY, AP; Trump administration is erasing history and science at national parks, lawsuit argues

"Conservation and historical organizations sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over National Park Service policies that the groups say erase history and science from America’s national parks. 

A lawsuit filed in Boston says orders by President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have forced park service staff to remove or censor exhibits that share factually accurate and relevant U.S. history and scientific knowledge, including about slavery and climate change. 

Separately, LGBTQ+ rights advocates and historic preservationists sued the park service Tuesday for removing a rainbow Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument, the New York site that commemorates a foundational moment in the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. 

The changes at exhibits came in response to a Trump executive order “restoring truth and sanity to American history” at the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks. It directed the Interior Department to ensure those sites do not display elements that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” Burgum later directed removal of “improper partisan ideology” from museums, monuments, landmarks and other public exhibits under federal control...

The suit was filed by a coalition that includes the National Parks Conservation Association, American Association for State and Local History, Association of National Park Rangers and Union of Concerned Scientists. It comes as a federal judge on Monday ordered that an exhibit about nine people enslaved by George Washington must be restored at his former home in Philadelphia."

Judge invokes George Orwell’s ‘1984’ in ordering restoration of Philadelphia slavery exhibit; The Hill, February 16, 2026

 ZACH SCHONFELD, The Hill; Judge invokes George Orwell’s ‘1984’ in ordering restoration of Philadelphia slavery exhibit 

"A federal judge ordered the National Park Service to restore exhibits about slaves who lived at the nation’s one-time executive mansion in Philadelphia, agreeing with the city that the Trump administration likely unlawfully removed the displays. 

U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe invoked the dystopian novel “1984” as she blocked the Trump administration from changing or damaging the site, which is now an outdoor exhibition.

“As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims—to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. It does not,” Rufe wrote. 

Rufe is an appointee of former President George W. Bush."

Pennsylvania Episcopalians, church to celebrate life and legacy of Absalom Jones; Episcopal News Service (ENS), February 12, 2026

Shireen Korkzan, Episcopal News Service (ENS); Pennsylvania Episcopalians, church to celebrate life and legacy of Absalom Jones

"Church leaders and Episcopalians in the Diocese of Pennsylvania will celebrate the Feast of the Rev. Absalom Jones, The Episcopal Church’s first Black ordained priest, on Feb. 15 during a livestreamed service at the historic African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia, where Jones’ remains are interred in a side altar...

Absalom Jones was born into slavery in 1746 and released from bondage in 1784 following the American Revolution. Three years later, he and Allen, who also was the first bishop of the AME Church, co-founded the Free African Society, an organization that provided aid to Black people newly freed from enslavement.

Jones founded St. Thomas in 1792 and served as the church’s first rector. In 1802, he was ordained a priest. Jones’ feast day is on The Episcopal Church’s Lesser Feasts and Fasts calendar on Feb. 13, the date commemorating his death in 1818 at 71...

“In these difficult times, when even Christian communities can be strained by the forces of division and despair, our church urgently needs more leaders like Absalom Jones – leaders who act on behalf of the oppressed and distressed of our times, and at the same time embody the command Jesus gives us in the Gospel appointed for his feast day: ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you,” Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe said in a Feb. 12 letter promoting the fund. Rowe preached at St. Thomas’ for Jones’ feast day in 2025.

This year’s celebration comes two weeks after the National Park Service removed an open-air exhibit featuring Jones and Allen from Independence National Historical Park.

The now removed exhibit, “The President’s House: Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,” opened in 2010 on the site where Presidents George Washington and John Adams lived in the 1790s. It was removed in response to President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order prohibitingnational sites from showcasing negative aspects of U.S. history, including slavery.

The removal “strategically” occurring days before the start of Black History Month, February, was “absolutely deliberate and calculated,” Shaw said, noting that 2026 also marks the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding."

MLK III accuses National Park Service of ‘sanitizing’ history; The Hill, February 6, 2026

SOPHIE BRAMS , The Hill; MLK III accuses National Park Service of ‘sanitizing’ history

 "Martin Luther King III, the son of civil rights advocate the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., accused the National Park Service on Thursday of “sanitizing history” amid reported changes at a Mississippi house museum commemorating civil rights activist Medgar Evers.

Evers, the Magnolia State’s first NAACP field secretary, was assassinated at the age of 37 in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Miss., by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith on June 12, 1963.

Beckwith was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens’ Council, the latter of which was referenced as a “racist and segregationist” group in original visitors’ brochures at the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument.

Mississippi Today reported Thursday that the National Park Service (NPS) removed those brochures from the museum and planned to edit them to no longer call Evers’s killer “a racist,” citing NPS officials who did not want to be named. Edits also reportedly included eliminating a reference to the late activist lying in a pool of blood after he was shot.

The brochures were returned hours later, with officials citing “outdated” information as the reason for their removal, according to the outlet. But news of the changes still caught the attention of civil rights advocates and congressional lawmakers."

JFK’s Infuriated Niece Vows to Take Kennedy Center Renaming Into Own Hands; The Daily Beast, December 20, 2025

Katie Francis , The Daily Beast; JFK’s Infuriated Niece Vows to Take Kennedy Center Renaming Into Own Hands

"Kerry Kennedy has announced a very DIY solution to the addition of Trump’s name to her uncle’s memorial center...

Three years and one month from today, I’m going to grab a pickax and pull those letters off that building, but I’m going to need help holding the ladder. Are you in? Applying for my carpenter’s card today, so it’ll be a union job!!!"

Kennedy Family Rails Against Trump’s ‘Obsessive’ Center Renaming; The Daily Beast, December 18, 2025

William Vaillancourt , The Daily Beast ; Kennedy Family Rails Against Trump’s ‘Obsessive’ Center Renaming

"Several members of the Kennedy family have objected to Donald Trump slapping his name on the historic arts center that memorializes the 35th president.

Despite Congress being the authority on the name of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Trump on Thursday declared that the venue would be known as the “Trump-Kennedy Center” following a vote from his hand-picked board members. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt bizarrely even offered “congratulations” to Kennedy when announcing the news.

But JFK’s nieces, grandson, and grandnephew naturally don’t approve of Trump, 79, inserting himself into the late president’s legacy.

Maria Shriver, Kennedy’s niece through Eunice Kennedy Shriver, called Trump’s habit of naming things after himself an “obsession.”

“It is beyond comprehension that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy. It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable. It is not,” Shriver, 70, wrote on X, adding that he could very well try to do the same with the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C...

“This is not dignified. This is not funny. This is way beneath the stature of the job. It’s downright weird. It’s obsessive in a weird way,” continued Shriver, who earlier said she was “enraged” by the news. “Just when you think someone can’t stoop any lower, down they go…”

Meanwhile, Kerry Kennedy, JFK’s niece through Robert F. Kennedy, criticized Trump for “repressing free expression, targeting artists, journalists, and comedians, and erasing the history of Americans whose contributions made our nation better and more just.”"