'Censoring history divides us’: Florida national parks flagged under executive order
By Carla Mendez
August 20, 2025 at 7:00 AM EDT
A nonprofit has warned that a Trump executive order aimed at scrubbing National Parks of information deemed to be disparaging is reshaping what visitors learn— and will jeopardize our "cultural and natural history."
In Florida, exhibits that detail slavery, U.S. invasions and the environmental toll of industrialization have been flagged by National Park Service staff for review under a presidential directive called “Restore Truth and Sanity to American History.”
The order, issued by President Donald Trump in March, directs the removal of content that "inappropriately disparages Americans past or living”. It required all national parks to post QR codes, inviting visitors to report content they believe portrays American history or landscapes in a negative light.
Signs like this one in the Presidio of San Francisco, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, have been going up around the country's national parks in response to President Trump's executive order titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History." (1760x1320, AR: 1.3333333333333333)
The deadline for staff to submit public-facing content for review was July 18, with a separate deadline for all NPS units to complete a review of monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties by June 20.
According to government records obtained by the National Park Conservation Association (NPCA), Florida park staff at Everglades National Park, Castillo de San Marcos and Fort Matanzas National Monuments in St. Augustine, and the Timucuan Ecological and Historical Preserve in Jacksonville, have flagged and submitted materials for review.
READ MORE: Trump's cuts to National Parks are real but many visitors aren't seeing them yet
NPCA officials say many staff flagged items not because they personally saw them as disparaging, but out of concern for professional consequences.
“ What we're seeing is part of a troubling trend that began early in this administration,” said Vanessa Trujillo, the NPCA’s Senior Conservation Program Manager for the Suncoast Region. “There's growing pressure on National Park staff and visitors to report so-called negative information shared at parks, information that might reflect uncomfortable truths about American history or the impacts of climate change.”
Trujillo says the review touches sites across Florida that offer visitors tangible examples of important history and resilience. At Kingsley Plantation in the Timucuan Preserve, cabins that housed enslaved people reveal the lives of those who lived, worked and dreamed of freedom there.
“This location near Jacksonville reveals the often ignored lives of enslaved Africans and African Americans in early Florida,” Trujillo explains. “It's also the story of Anna Kingsley, a once-enslaved woman who became a landowner. And the remaining slave cabins offer rare, tangible evidence of black resilience.”
Untitled
The Freedom Seekers exhibit in Jacksonville shares Anna Kingsley’s story and was one of the exhibits submitted for review under this directives language for including the name of the enslavers and the fact that the freedom seekers were publicly whipped.
Other exhibits flagged include a panel in the Fort Matanzas National Monument in St. Augustine detailing the 1812 "Patriot War," when Americans plotted to seize Spanish Florida. The panel was flagged to determine whether it painted the United States in a negative light.
Everglades National Park staff noted that descriptions of industrialization’s impact, which is central to the park’s mission of protecting the ecosystem, could be interpreted as disparaging under the order.
At Castillo de San Marcos, panels describing the imprisonment of Plains tribes, including Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche and Caddo people, were sent to be reviewed because language about forced assimilation could be seen as critical of U.S. history.
Across the country, several other exhibits have been flagged under the executive order.
Trujillo says the order risks politicizing historical interpretation and losing vital parts of local and national history. “Park rangers and interpreters aren’t just managing trails; they’re safeguarding cultural and natural history,” she said.
“ Censoring history doesn't protect us, it divides us and these stories may be difficult to hear, but they're vital to understanding who we are and how we move forward together as a nation."
The NPCA shared documents with WLRN showing visitor responses submitted via the Department of the Interior’s QR codes, that revealed a broad support for the national parks and their programming.
“Overwhelmingly, visitors are saying how much they love our national parks,” Trujillo said. “They value learning about our shared history and believe that rangers from places like Biscayne, Everglades, Big Cypress and even our small historic sites are doing an exceptional job.”
One June 17 comment from Biscayne National Park expressed concern about climate change education, saying, “I visited Biscayne a couple months ago, but was dismayed to see so few mentions of climate change on the signage, warming sea temperatures are leading to coral bleaching and floods of sargasso seaweed on our beaches, and I’m worried that the public isn’t being sufficiently educated.”
WLRN reached out to the Department of the Interior for comment. In an email statement, Elizabeth Peace, Senior Public Affairs Specialist, said the review process is "deliberate" and thorough. "This effort reinforces our commitment to telling the full and accurate story of our nation's past," she added.
A representative from Everglades National Park also responded via email, echoing this perspective, saying that “all educational and interpretive materials have been evaluated and submitted for further review” and that “at this time, we have no further information specific to the review process.”
'Censoring history divides us'
Trujillo warns that the directive might pressure staff and interfere with their work, which will in turn affect the experience of visitors.
“They're forced to choose between doing their jobs with integrity, or facing professional consequences potentially for not aligning with these political directives,” Trujillo says. “And it's not just about the signage or Ranger talks, it's about whether we allow politics to dictate what truth the public is allowed to hear in our national parks.”
“These policies make it harder for park staff to do their job and harder for visitors to have the meaningful once in a lifetime experience that they expect. National Park should be places where truth is honored and not silenced,” she added.
At the start of President Trump’s second term in February, the administration terminated over a thousand National Park staff without warning, a mass staffing cut part of a broader government initiative to cut federal spending that sparked a national outcry online.
Under the 1916 Organic Act and the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, the National Park Service is legally required to preserve, protect, and interpret American history.
More than two-thirds of the country’s 433 national park sites are dedicated to history and culture, managing over 26,000 historic structures and nearly 185 million artifacts.
Trujillo says that parks provide an immersive educational experience, teaching difficult topics like slavery, racism, and climate change, and that sanitizing these narratives diminishes public understanding.
“ Censoring history doesn't protect us, it divides us and these stories may be difficult to hear, but they're vital to understanding who we are and how we move forward together as a nation,” Trujillo says.
In Florida, exhibits that detail slavery, U.S. invasions and the environmental toll of industrialization have been flagged by National Park Service staff for review under a presidential directive called “Restore Truth and Sanity to American History.”
The order, issued by President Donald Trump in March, directs the removal of content that "inappropriately disparages Americans past or living”. It required all national parks to post QR codes, inviting visitors to report content they believe portrays American history or landscapes in a negative light.
Signs like this one in the Presidio of San Francisco, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, have been going up around the country's national parks in response to President Trump's executive order titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History." (1760x1320, AR: 1.3333333333333333)
The deadline for staff to submit public-facing content for review was July 18, with a separate deadline for all NPS units to complete a review of monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties by June 20.
According to government records obtained by the National Park Conservation Association (NPCA), Florida park staff at Everglades National Park, Castillo de San Marcos and Fort Matanzas National Monuments in St. Augustine, and the Timucuan Ecological and Historical Preserve in Jacksonville, have flagged and submitted materials for review.
READ MORE: Trump's cuts to National Parks are real but many visitors aren't seeing them yet
NPCA officials say many staff flagged items not because they personally saw them as disparaging, but out of concern for professional consequences.
“ What we're seeing is part of a troubling trend that began early in this administration,” said Vanessa Trujillo, the NPCA’s Senior Conservation Program Manager for the Suncoast Region. “There's growing pressure on National Park staff and visitors to report so-called negative information shared at parks, information that might reflect uncomfortable truths about American history or the impacts of climate change.”
Trujillo says the review touches sites across Florida that offer visitors tangible examples of important history and resilience. At Kingsley Plantation in the Timucuan Preserve, cabins that housed enslaved people reveal the lives of those who lived, worked and dreamed of freedom there.
“This location near Jacksonville reveals the often ignored lives of enslaved Africans and African Americans in early Florida,” Trujillo explains. “It's also the story of Anna Kingsley, a once-enslaved woman who became a landowner. And the remaining slave cabins offer rare, tangible evidence of black resilience.”
Untitled
The Freedom Seekers exhibit in Jacksonville shares Anna Kingsley’s story and was one of the exhibits submitted for review under this directives language for including the name of the enslavers and the fact that the freedom seekers were publicly whipped.
Other exhibits flagged include a panel in the Fort Matanzas National Monument in St. Augustine detailing the 1812 "Patriot War," when Americans plotted to seize Spanish Florida. The panel was flagged to determine whether it painted the United States in a negative light.
Everglades National Park staff noted that descriptions of industrialization’s impact, which is central to the park’s mission of protecting the ecosystem, could be interpreted as disparaging under the order.
At Castillo de San Marcos, panels describing the imprisonment of Plains tribes, including Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche and Caddo people, were sent to be reviewed because language about forced assimilation could be seen as critical of U.S. history.
Across the country, several other exhibits have been flagged under the executive order.
Trujillo says the order risks politicizing historical interpretation and losing vital parts of local and national history. “Park rangers and interpreters aren’t just managing trails; they’re safeguarding cultural and natural history,” she said.
“ Censoring history doesn't protect us, it divides us and these stories may be difficult to hear, but they're vital to understanding who we are and how we move forward together as a nation."
The NPCA shared documents with WLRN showing visitor responses submitted via the Department of the Interior’s QR codes, that revealed a broad support for the national parks and their programming.
“Overwhelmingly, visitors are saying how much they love our national parks,” Trujillo said. “They value learning about our shared history and believe that rangers from places like Biscayne, Everglades, Big Cypress and even our small historic sites are doing an exceptional job.”
One June 17 comment from Biscayne National Park expressed concern about climate change education, saying, “I visited Biscayne a couple months ago, but was dismayed to see so few mentions of climate change on the signage, warming sea temperatures are leading to coral bleaching and floods of sargasso seaweed on our beaches, and I’m worried that the public isn’t being sufficiently educated.”
WLRN reached out to the Department of the Interior for comment. In an email statement, Elizabeth Peace, Senior Public Affairs Specialist, said the review process is "deliberate" and thorough. "This effort reinforces our commitment to telling the full and accurate story of our nation's past," she added.
A representative from Everglades National Park also responded via email, echoing this perspective, saying that “all educational and interpretive materials have been evaluated and submitted for further review” and that “at this time, we have no further information specific to the review process.”
'Censoring history divides us'
Trujillo warns that the directive might pressure staff and interfere with their work, which will in turn affect the experience of visitors.
“They're forced to choose between doing their jobs with integrity, or facing professional consequences potentially for not aligning with these political directives,” Trujillo says. “And it's not just about the signage or Ranger talks, it's about whether we allow politics to dictate what truth the public is allowed to hear in our national parks.”
“These policies make it harder for park staff to do their job and harder for visitors to have the meaningful once in a lifetime experience that they expect. National Park should be places where truth is honored and not silenced,” she added.
At the start of President Trump’s second term in February, the administration terminated over a thousand National Park staff without warning, a mass staffing cut part of a broader government initiative to cut federal spending that sparked a national outcry online.
Under the 1916 Organic Act and the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, the National Park Service is legally required to preserve, protect, and interpret American history.
More than two-thirds of the country’s 433 national park sites are dedicated to history and culture, managing over 26,000 historic structures and nearly 185 million artifacts.
Trujillo says that parks provide an immersive educational experience, teaching difficult topics like slavery, racism, and climate change, and that sanitizing these narratives diminishes public understanding.
“ Censoring history doesn't protect us, it divides us and these stories may be difficult to hear, but they're vital to understanding who we are and how we move forward together as a nation,” Trujillo says.