Trump’s Historical Revision Campaign Escalates
Taxpayer funds bring misleading, whitewashed “history” tour to schools in South Carolina
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s aggressive campaign to turn American history into whitewashed propaganda dramatically escalated this week. In South Carolina, an immersive mobile museum funded with $10 million in taxpayer dollars will visit two schools in the Columbia area.
This trip comes after USA Today reported the taxpayer-funded “Freedom Truck” mobile museum contained one exhibit telling visitors that the “foundational principles of America are rooted in Western and Judeo-Christian values” and another failing to note that Thomas Jefferson personally enslaved more than 600 people.
The materials for this effort were created by the far-right media organization Prager U, whose chief executive told USA Today that the exhibit’s goal is for visitors to “not learn about what America looked like based on an interpretation of some woke agenda.” She also said that “We’ve been talking about how intentionally taking the Bible out of the classroom has effectively ruined America’s education system.”
“An official celebration of American history at this milestone moment should celebrate America’s actual history, including the role of ordinary Americans in moving toward equality and freedom,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen. “It should not aim to censor America’s true story or elevate a particular culture or religion. Donald Trump’s cabinet secretaries at the Departments of Interior, Education and other key agencies appear intent on instead creating a highly divisive, ideologically extremist exercise, sabotaging what should have been a unifying event.”
The mobile museum’s visit to South Carolina comes as the U.S. Department of the Interior, under Secretary Doug Burgum, is considering massive revisions to historical depictions at national park sites and historic locations around the country.
Investigative reporting by the Washington Post this week revealed a database compiled by the National Park Service calling for Orwellian “reviews” of numerous key events in U.S. history are depicted including he murder of Emmett Till, Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings, an enslaved person and discussions of segregation in the South, and detail the violent attacks on peaceful demonstrators crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. And the Department of Education placed a banner of Charlie Kirk on its building, a move that gave the late Turning Point USA founder equal historical importance as Booker T. Washington, one of the most prominent figures in African American history.
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