House Democrats accused the Trump administration of sanitizing history at a hearing following the removal of an iconic Civil War-era photo of a formerly enslaved man with scars on his back.
At the same time, a Republican subcommittee chair cast doubt on the veracity of news reports about the removal and argued that it was the Biden administration that was at fault for erasing history when it acted to remove statues and memorials.
The National Park Service ordered the removal of the photo from Fort Pulaski National Monument in Georgia pursuant to the administration’s executive actions prohibiting “negative” portrayals of American history, according to two people who spoke with POLITICO’s E&E News. The people were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about internal agency decisions.
“The Scourged Back,” as the photo is known, shows a formerly enslaved Black man known only as Peter — or, by some accounts, Gordon — his back laced with scars from whippings. The photo was reproduced thousands of times and helped turn public opinion against slavery. Displays at other National Park Service sites have come under increased scrutiny from the Trump administration.
House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said an order removing the photo was tantamount to “whitewashing” history.
“What the hell is going on here that someone in this administration directed this photo to be removed from a display?” Huffman said (D-Calif.) during a subcommittee hearing Thursday. “Removing these exhibits from places that teach and interpret our history is not patriotic, it is pure propaganda, it’s un-American.”
Huffman questioned National Park Service Associate Director Michael Caldwell, who was testifying at the hearing on a separate matter and denied knowledge of an order to remove the photo.
“The department, to my knowledge, has not ordered or instructed anyone to remove content about slavery,” Caldwell said. “I’m not involved in the implementation of the secretarial order. … I certainly can relay your concerns to the folks that are implementing the secretarial order.”
That answer did not satisfy Huffman, who grew frustrated with Caldwell, a career veteran of the park service.
“You’re wrong about that, because this really did happen,” Huffman said.
The NPS on Wednesday declined to comment to E&E News on specific installations that have been removed, saying the review was ongoing.
“Any interpretive materials that are found to have been removed or altered prematurely or in error will be reviewed and corrective action will be taken as appropriate,” Interior Department spokesperson Elizabeth Peace said in an email.
“Interpretive materials that focus solely on challenging aspects of U.S. history, without acknowledging broader context or national progress, may unintentionally provide an incomplete understanding rather than enrich it.”
‘I would be careful’
President Donald Trump and Interior Department Secretary Doug Burgum have both issued orders reviewing historical exhibits at national institutions. Burgum’s order calls for removing materials that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), the chair of the Federal Lands Subcommittee, which held Thursday’s hearing, pushed back in defense of Interior. He entered into the record a report from The Hill where Interior denied ordering NPS to remove the photo.
Tiffany also chided Democrats for saying the Trump administration was working to erase history.
“I would be careful on the other side in regards to talking about erasing history after watching the four years of the Biden administration in which statues and monuments that could be deemed controversial that were removed, but that is history,” Tiffany said.
“It is controversial at times, and we should not whitewash it, but what we saw in the previous four years to the Trump administration was an erasing of history.”
The Biden administration did not carry out an extensive removal of memorials or statues despite a national debate at the time over whether to dismantle monuments to Confederate leaders.
A statue of Confederate General Albert Pike in Judiciary Square was partially demolished during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and was not restored by the Biden administration. The Trump administration announced this year that it would be restored.
The Biden administration removed a Confederate memorial in Arlington National Cemetery after an independent commission recommended its removal. The Trump administration announced in August it will restore the memorial.
Tiffany said the Republican party was created to “end slavery” and that he believes in a “colorblind society.”
‘You can’t erase history’
Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), the ranking member of the subcommittee, warned that eventually records about the order, should they exist, to take down the photo will become public. He, like Huffman, was frustrated with Caldwell for being “evasive.”
“The email communications that you all are having within the agencies and elsewhere? Eventually those will become public,” Neguse said. “So if you know if this photo was taken down, whether intentionally or by mistake then you have an obligation to tell the committee.”
He added: “Photos like these should not be taken down. It’s offensive what the Department of the Interior is doing right now.”
The top Republicans responsible for the oversight and funding of the Interior Department and NPS both said they had not seen the order to remove the photo.
Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), chair of the full committee, said he had not seen the exchange in his committee nor heard of the order for the photo to be taken down.
“I’ve been on the record with monuments and stuff being removed from the park service in the past,” Westerman said, without specifying. He had previously voted against a 2021 bill removing Confederate statues from the Capitol, arguing that many were already in the process of being replaced. He said such actions “prematurely thwart the authority of states,” which get to choose which statues are placed in the Capitol.
Another prominent Republican, House Interior-EPA Appropriations Chair Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), also said he hasn’t “heard anything about that,” and would look into it. Simpson controls funding for the Interior Department in the House.
Asked if he would be opposed to such an order, Simpson appeared to suggest he would be.
“I’d have to see what the order is,” he said. “But you can’t erase history.”
