Host Kay Brown speaks with Alan Spears of the National Parks Conservation Association about litigation challenging the removal of historical and scientific interpretation from park sites, why inclusive storytelling matters, and how national parks shape public understanding of the American experience. The discussion also explores National Heritage Areas and Julius Rosenwald’s philanthropic legacy, arguing that preserving history requires continual public engagement rather than nostalgia.

Eight Actionable Takeaways

1. Understand how public history shapes civic awareness.
2. Follow developments in the federal lawsuit discussed.
3. Visit a National Park with historical interpretation.
4. Explore a nearby National Heritage Area.
5. Learn about Julius Rosenwald Schools.
6. Support organizations preserving historical resources.
7. Evaluate historical claims using primary sources.
8. Engage in civic discussions using evidence rather than slogans.

Verified Resources

National Parks Conservation Association

Democracy Forward

National Heritage Areas

Great American Outdoors Act

Mentioned in this episode:

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We're going to fight our national parks, our democracy, our country.

They're worth fighting for.

And these are some uniquely democratic places.

And the vision of this country from more than 100 years ago, that we were going to protect public lands in perpetuity for the benefit, enjoyment and inspiration of the public.

That's a pretty righteous idea.

Welcome to Democracy on Fire.

So glad you're here.

Today we're looking at the Trump administration's attempts to remove honest history and sound science from our national parks.

My guest is someone who knows a lot about this.

I'm happy to welcome Alan Spears, who's senior Director for Cultural Resources for the National Parks Conservation Association.

Welcome, Alan.

Hey, Kay.

Great to be with you today.

Thank you.

Npca, as it's known, is one of the organizations that brought a federal lawsuit earlier this year challenging Trump's removal from our parks of many exhibits that discuss the history of slavery and enslaved people, civil rights, treatment of indigenous people, and climate science, and other things about the American experience, which is really troubling and very disturbing that they are trying to sanitize all this information.

So there's been some good news in that lawsuit recently.

Did you want to describe that a bit, Alan?

Sure.

You are aware, and we'll make your listeners aware, that the National Parks Conservation association enlisted the help and the leadership of Democracy Forward.

And back in February of this year, we did bring a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior and the Secretary of the Interior.

And the lawsuit basically called for just the cessation of the removal of any additional interpretive materials and signage.

A big example of that is the removal of the interpretive materials and panels on enslaved people at the President's house in Philadelphia that were taken down in January.

So we felt, okay, they're going.

Now it's time for us to move.

So, again, working with Democracy Forward, we put together a lawsuit.

And fast forward to about two weeks ago.

We got a good ruling from a Massachusetts judge, Judge Kelly, who basically said that the case that we had brought had standing, and that what we were seeing in terms of the removal of interpretive materials from national parks was overreach, politically motivated by the administration.

And the ruling was that the National Park Service Department of the Interior could not remove any additional signs.

That was good that they had until July 3rd of this year, next week to restore signage that had been removed.

Over the last year or so, and that the Trump administration had to provide a list of the materials that had been removed.

So all those things, incredibly good step, incredibly good, positive ruling from the judge.

And we did get a list from the Trump administration of the 30, 40 parks that had actually taken materials down and learned, unfortunately, that some of the materials that had been taken down had been discarded and thrown away.

So that was unfortunate.

The administration did appeal that ruling.

And so right now, it's my understanding that the Park Service is not obligated to restore stuff by the July 3rd deadline, but they're still obligated to not remove any additional signage.

And, Kay, I gotta tell you that things are changing rapidly as we speak related to findings and other things like that.

Our Democracy Forward colleagues are earning their keep as lawyers and people tracking this stuff.

But stay tuned, because we're going to have some decisions possibly before the 4th of July and certainly in over the month of July that impact this case.

But we are in a better place right now that we've got a judge that found that we had standing and that we had brought a good case and that the restoring truth and sanity was maybe a step too far in terms of policy, procedure, and just basically the un American nature of that kind of policy.

Tell me a little bit about what your organization works on and why the national parks play such an important role in presenting our history to the public.

So the National Parks Conservation association is a 501c3 advocacy group.

Anybody who's interested, you can look us [email protected].

But you got to be careful because we also share those initials with the National Precast Concrete association and the National Police Canine Association.

So if you can see just there, you want to look for the two bears and the green and white logo.

And we would love for you to kind of take a look at who we learn a little bit more about who we are and what we do.

I'm a historian by passion and by training and had never really thought about national parks as being places that were chock full of history and culture.

And so it was a wonderful surprise when I got an internship at MPCA and learned that every single park in our system, whether we're talking about the large ones like Yellowstone or Yosemite or the Grand Canyon, or Civil War battlefields like Gettysburg and Antietam, or.

Or more cultural sites like the Frederick Douglass home or the Clara Barton home, they are all chock full of historic and cultural resources.

So what a wonderful field for a historian to gamble through.

And The Park Service, because of the historians and the interpreters and the programs that that agency manages, they're one of the largest stewards of American history in the country.

And they do a really good job, and especially over the last 25 to 30 years, of ensuring that our history is more accurate, more inclusive and more just.

And it's important that they do that, because we're not done with our history, and our history is certainly not done with us.

And we need to be able to have honest and frank conversations about where we've come from, because I think those conversations and those facts can influence where we are right now and where we're going.

And it'll determine whether or not we get there together or whether or not we go in the direction of hopefully not another fratricidal civil war or other inconvenient things, because we can't resolve our differences in peaceful ways.

So do you think what's going on with Trump's attempts to remove science and history and delete this history so that it's erased, is that a backlash to the fact that our society has become more inclusive and there are advances that have been made by formerly excluded people at all levels?

You know, woke culture seems to be.

Trump is the trumpet.

He's going to stamp it out.

And this is just part of that effort that is underway on a lot of different fronts.

That's a great question, Kay.

Let's talk actually a little bit about what woke means.

You and I are residents, citizens, and a participatory democracy.

I'm joining you from Washington, D.C. and out my window, looking down Wisconsin Avenue towards Georgetown.

There are no tanks on the street.

There are no armored cars on the street.

We live in a participatory democracy, but that means we have to participate, and that means we need citizens who are aware of the way that our politics work, the way that our government works, and aware of our history and their contributions and struggles as people who have than participating to the great, making the greatness of this country a real thing.

Being woke means that you're aware of your obligations and responsibilities as a steward of the country, of the Constitution, of our morals, of our fiber, our history, and our cultural, natural, historic and scenic resources.

So being woke isn't anything to be afraid of.

It's actually something to be embraced.

Unfortunately, in current circumstances, we've got people who have taken that word and attached totally negative connotations to it.

And so we are seeing an effort by this president to make points with constituents by going after the woke crowd.

But the truth behind that is.

That is an ahistorical approach to discussing the history of this country.

It used to be.

And maybe I'll stop and start again by saying that there is a thing called historiography.

The nature, the very nature of history changes over time.

And 100 years ago, 150 years ago, it was possible that history could only be about the great men, the guys we see on horseback, usually with a sword in one hand, pointing the way forward.

And what we've realized in the last 25 to 30 years with the advent of public history, is that, yes, it's those great men on horseback with the swords, but it's also the people whose names we don't know, who were toiling in fields, who were working in shops, who were the corporals and the privates in the armies, who were doing some of the fighting for this democracy, the women on the home front and on the battlefield.

Those stories count, too, and they can inform us about who we are and where we've come from.

And so what we're seeing right now is an effort by the National Park Service and by other people who are handling and interpreting, fill in the blanks of our historical narrative so that we all feel like we've got a place in this shared national narrative of ours, and there isn't anything wrong with that.

It is especially troubling to me right now, Kay, that we are days away from the 250th anniversary of American independence, and we seem to be focused at this point in time not on bringing people together, but on pushing people out and expunging certain stories from our shared national narrative because they make some people feel uncomfortable.

That's not what Americans do.

That's not what the country needs.

That's not going to take us forward.

It's not going to make this country great.

So you're in D.C. observing the changes that are being made at the Reflecting Pool and the national monuments around town there.

How do you view the situation?

It seems like that things have gotten quite out of hand.

So I think the best way, the most accurate way that I could respond to that question is by sharing that a lot of the public works that are managed by the National Park Service in Washington, DC, do need refurbishment.

These things, once they've been established, like the Reflecting Pool, do have to be cared for and kept up.

And in some instances, the budgets going to the National Park Service, their construction account and their operational account, have not matched the need.

So addressing some of these concerns, I think, is an appropriate thing.

It does not appear that the policies that are being enacted right now and the reforms that are being enacted by this president are working.

And it also appears that we are expending a great deal of money for plans that have not been very well thought out, that aren't necessarily working the way that we would like for them to work.

And we're doing that at a time when the National Park Service is desperate for money to fix roads and fix bridges.

We, we are doing our best to pass the Great American Outdoors act through the House and the Senate bills that would add funding to the knocking down of the deferred maintenance backlog for national parks and public lands.

So there are opportunities to be very serious about the way that we improve our national parks and our public lands.

I'm not sure the painting or reflecting pool blue is the way to get there.

I wanted to ask you a little bit about the National Heritage Area act that you worked on and that I understand got passed a couple of years ago.

What is that about?

What are National Heritage Areas and has that started to be implemented?

You're talking about one of my favorite kids right now when we talk about the National Heritage Area Program.

And back at that point in time, I think people, park advocates and people who were detractors of an expanded national park system, all of them began to think, listen, if we continue to designate National Park Service sites, you're not going to be able to drive from New Jersey to California without ever being outside of a federally owned national park.

And I think they felt that maybe that was a little bit too far.

So heritage areas are ways that the Park Service can team up with local experts to help them perfect and expand the way that they tell their own stories and their own part of the American experience.

And so heritage areas, there's 62 of them right now, they are managed by the National Park Service, but they are not considered to be units of the National Park System.

And I was just down at a national heritage area, the Southern Maryland National Heritage Area, on Monday, they organized a beautiful event.

It was a Liberty tree planting, and the one that was in Maryland evidently was knocked down or fell over after being up since revolutionary times.

But it was a good thing that some scientists, a biologist, whoever did the thing, they were actually able to take DNA samples of the tree.

And so they reproduced this tree, and now it's been replanted near the Thomastone National Historic Site in Maryland, and hopefully we'll see that tree begin to grow and to flourish.

But that was A beautiful way to pull together a diverse number of people to celebrate the 250th anniversary of this country.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, who has long been an ally and a stalwart defender of public lands and national parks, was there and made excellent remarks.

My friend Lucille Walker, the executive director, was there.

We had great representation from National Park Service folks, and even representatives from the Kenoe Piscataway Indian tribe were there.

And that's what we're talking about, bringing people together to celebrate our heritage and our common national narrative.

And so heritage areas have the ability to do that.

There's Southern Maryland and then 61 other national heritage areas.

So that was a milestone in the history of the heritage area program.

My friend Sarah Capen is the chair, the executive director of the alliance of National Heritage Areas.

And it's just a really good way to conduct a public private partnership between the National Park Service and communities all across the country.

I love the program.

It is incredibly impactful.

And they do receive federal funding, a tiny amount.

And for every one federal dollar invested in a national heritage area, I think they return somewhere on five to $6 as a return on investment.

So they're also one of the most cost effective programs that's been managed by the federal government.

Most people have heritage areas within driving distance.

You should go visit one.

Do it for the 4th of July.

Sounds good.

I understand you're working to get a new national park set up to honor philanthropist and businessman Julius Rosenwald.

How's that going?

It's slow work, but it's good work.

And Julius Rosenwald was an extraordinary man, and he left an extraordinary legacy.

And he was the son of German Jewish immigrants.

I don't think he ever graduated from high school, but I think he had a lifelong love and appreciation for learning and education.

And he followed his uncles into the retail clothing trade.

So he had a business in New York, he had a business in Illinois and Chicago, but he wound up working for a small corporation.

You might have heard of Sears and Roebuck.

You could order everything from your shotgun to your shotgun house from the Sears catalog.

And Rosenwald had this incredible business acumen.

So he came up with things like satisfaction guaranteed or your money back, which made people feel like they could.

They could rely on Sears.

If they got overalls that were the wrong size or the wrong color, you could send them back and get the right thing in the mail in a few days or few weeks.

And because of that, the business became incredibly profitable.

And Rosenwald was a manager and executive at Sears.

He also had stock options.

And when those stocks split, he became, I think the economic term is a gazillionaire.

And he could have used that money to just promote his own personal interest, take his family on first collapsed class trips around the world.

But again, that lifelong learning that he embarked upon connected him to an activist, Rabbi Emile Hirsch.

And Hirsch slipped Rosenwald a copy of up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington's autobiography.

And he read that.

He's like, I gotta meet this guy.

And one idea that Booker T. Washington had was, can we take some of the money that you're giving to Tuskegee and use it to pay for the creation of schools, elementary schools for African Americans in Southern states?

And at that time, education was completely segregated, separate and unequal.

Rosenwald said yes.

They were able to construct more than 5,000 schools across 15 segregated Southern states.

And these were the first permanent educational facilities some African American communities had ever seen.

And the impact of those educational opportunities on black people was profound.

And so Mr. Rosenwald's philanthropy had a direct, important impact on the civil rights movement.

And if you want to get a sense of who some of those Rosenwald school graduates were, John Lewis, the former congressman from Georgia, went to a Rosenwald school.

So did Maya Angelou, Eugene Robinson, who is a columnist for the Washington Post.

And you see him from time to time on television shows like Morning Joe.

And I think he might actually be a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist as well, a Rosenwald School graduate.

But there are thousands of people whose names we won't ever know, but who made a lasting contribution to the country and to society after getting their start in Rosenwald schools.

So we want to get them in a park.

We have bills right now in both the House and the Senate, and we are trying our best to move them to a point where they could be passed into law, signed by the president, and then we get a new park site.

It's slow work.

We're hopeful that we can get stuff done on the 119th Congress.

If we don't, we'll be back on the 120th.

Well, that is a really interesting story.

And I want to thank you, Alan, for sharing your time and your expertise and for the work NPCA is doing to protect our parks and defend the principle that our national treasures should tell us about.

Tell the truth, our complicated, difficult truth about our history and who we are and what we face going forward.

And thank you for the lawsuit that you're involved in to protect our parks.

And we'll be watching that as it moves forward.

Are you optimistic about the outcome?

I think I know better than to express optimism publicly.

We're gonna fight our national parks, our democracy, our country.

They're worth fighting for.

And these are some uniquely democratic places.

And the vision of this country from more than 100 years ago, that we were gonna protect public lands in perpetuity for the benefit, enjoyment and inspiration of the public.

That's a pretty righteous idea.

So we're going to fight to make sure that parks are healthy and vital and that people are connected to them in all the right ways.

And I hope that we'll prevail.

I think we will.

Great.

With your help.

Well, thank you so much.

And for our listeners and viewers, if you want to learn more about NPCA's work, you can find us on links to their website on United America Network.

And this is Democracy on Fire.

Thanks for listening.

Please like and share.

And thank you, Alan.

Thank you.