The National Park Service has announced plans to take down interpretive signs at the Bunker Hill Monument as part of President Trump's ongoing campaign to remove plaques, statues, and other materials that wrestle with the full breadth of American history, challenging visitors to think deeply about past failures and present challenges.
The panels targeted for removal at Bunker Hill contain quotes about slavery, immigration, and war. They include a quote published in the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston in 1875, at a time when Irish immigrants to the region faced suspicion and discrimination. The quote reads in part: "It is our duty to show that in love of freedom and loyalty to the republic, the citizens of foreign birth take no second place."
Traci Griffith, director of the Racial Justice Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts, issued the following statement in response to the planned removal of the interpretive signs:
"This is just the latest example of the Trump administration's relentless efforts to erase history and silence any voice that speaks up for the dignity and worth of every human. It is shameful, and it is dangerous.
"America's past, like its present, contains both beauty and brutality. It is imperative that we study, remember, and learn from the full arc of our history — not a version that has been sanitized to serve a political agenda.
"As we approach our nation's 250th anniversary, we should be thinking about how to live up to the promises embedded in our founding documents: Equality, liberty, and justice for all. The panels at Bunker Hill inspire that kind of reflection. The administration should reverse its disgraceful censorship and drop plans to remove the quotes."
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