National Park visitors opt not to flag signs with ‘negative’ information : NPR

Signs like this in the Presidio of San Francisco, which is part of the Golden Gate national leisure area, have raised through the country in response to the executive decree of President Trump entitled “Restoring the truth and mental health to American history”.

Chloé Veltman / NPR

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Chloé Veltman / NPR

Panels installed earlier this month in national parks across the country asking visitors to share comments on “all signs or other negative information on past or living Americans” arouse all kinds of reactions. But the comments consulted by NPR do not provide the requested comments.

Visitors to the Presidio of San Francisco, a national historic monument and former military garrison with a complex history It did not seem impressed by the small black and white sign placed on a coffee table at the level roughly Shin near the Presidio reception center a recent morning.

“The goal of going to a park is to enjoy nature, not to denounce something that throws the American people in a bad light,” said Evan Sutterfield, a teacher from the San Francisco school enjoying a day during his summer vacation.

“I think you have to tell the whole story,” said Russ Harwell, visiting Charlotte, NC “if you are going to write it in history, then you are condemned to repeat it.”

Linda Mosinien de Milwaukee, Wisconsin, added: “I think it’s a waste of time.”

“Restore the truth and mental health to American history”

The signs, which invite people to send comments anonymously using a QR code, a telephone number, an email or a web address, appeared in response to a decree that President Trump published in March entitled “Restoring the truth and mental health to American history”. It specifically calls for the deletion of the contents of monuments and properties within the interior department which “inappropriately denies past or living Americans”.

In a statement at NPR, the Ministry of the Interior said: “The effort guarantees that public lands reflect a precise representation of American history and heritage.”

NPR examined dozens of comments subject from June 4 to 12 concerning the panels placed in parks across the country. According to the Coalition to Protect America’s Parks, a PDF of several pages containing these comments was disclosed by an employee of the National Park who took screenshots of the comments pages on their computer, then shared the PDF with plaid groups of the parks.

None of the comments submitted suggests that parks must change their representations of people or history.

Some are favorable. “The park’s rangers and volunteers go to tell the whole American story,” said a comment on the Mountain Catoctin park in Maryland.

Others say that national parks should further reflect the difficult history of the country. “Need more history on how blacks and natives have been exploited,” said a comment.

Different opinions

This does not mean that all visitors are satisfied with the historical information shared in Parks.

The spokesman for the Interior Ministry, J. Elizabeth Peace, said that Trump had published the decree – but before the signs increased – his department had already started to receive comments from visitors to the National Park via the ministry’s email address.

Peace said that an example concerns the Capitol Reef National Park in Utah, where a visitor reported that a souvenir postcard had misused a benchmark nearby and seemed to copy the text of Wikipedia without award.

Another came from a visitor concerned about a video on the Washington Monument website in Washington, DC, who declared in an inaccurate manner George Washington put an end to his inaugural oath with a sentence that historians are largely agree with a final lack.

The sentence in question was “so help me God”.

None of these comments linked to Trump’s executive order on the content which “inappropriately denigrated past or living Americans”. But peace said they were nevertheless useful.

“The two examples provided were examined by the National Park Service and corrective or appropriate clarification measures have been taken,” said Peace. “These examples highlight the value of public comments to help us maintain historical precision on our sites and materials.”

Precision challenges

The precision is not given, because the comments can be submitted via a general website or an accessible email address from anywhere in the world.

“What would prevent someone with a program from publishing false comments?” said Clara Wooden, a member of the Coalition Board of Directors to protect US national parks. “People at the two ends of the ideological spectrum can play the system without even setting foot in a national park.”

In response to these concerns, the peace of the Ministry of the Interior said that NPR comments are examined individually before being sent to experts in the appropriate matter for further assessment and validation. “This manual examination process guarantees that the comments with which we work are both relevant and credible,” she said.