More than 1,000 years ago, the Early Mississippian people, a diverse collection of Native American cultures, built massive mounds at Ocmulgee in what is now Macon.
The mounds, rising up to 50 feet into the air, stretched as far north as Wisconsin. They served as burial sites for elites, platforms for the homes of community leaders and spaces for gathering.
The mounds were the spiritual heart of the native communities, specifically the Muscogee (Creek), whose descendants venture to the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historic Park each September to remember their connection to the land.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
A series of treaties began forcing them off the land in the 1800s, and by 1821, the people who constructed these cultural and architectural marvels were forced out by settlers who took the land for agricultural purposes.
This doesn’t paint American history in the positive light Donald Trump wants to force on us, but it is the truth.
The mounds do tell a story of the beauty and grandeur of America, but that part of the story belongs to Native Americans. For settlers, this particular story is about their capacity for physical and cultural genocide.
The history of the Ocmulgee Mounds and other aspects of American history are being threatened by a ham-handed move from the Trump administration to erase any negative aspects of America’s past and replace them with either ignorance or fairy tales.
This week, by Dec. 19, gift shops, bookstores and concessions at more than 400 sites operated by the National Park Service must be purged of anything deemed to “promote specific viewpoints” or “radical and divisive ideologies.”
Back in June, staffers at NPS sites flagged books about George Washington, slavery and Native Americans as potential items for removal, including a picture book about the former Interior secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American cabinet secretary.
Per usual, the details of what items should be removed are unclear and undefined. Interior Department officials gave no examples of items that could no longer be sold, and they did not offer training to Park Service employees to help them make those decisions.
NPS staff members spoke anonymously to media outlets because they fear retribution, which means they are also likely to make fear-driven choices about what meets the administration’s standard of neutrality.
Credit: Hyosub Shin
Credit: Hyosub Shin
This feels like a threat to Georgia NPS sites like Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park and MLK Jr. National Historical Park and Memorial, which embody some of the most horrific moments in American history.
Trump also cut free admission to NPS sites on MLK Jr. Day and Juneteenth, both federal holidays when many Americans have free time to visit a national park. He introduced a fee structure that penalizes foreign visitors, and he violated a 2004 federal law by putting his mug next to George Washington on the new park pass.
The NPS manages 433 sites across 19 different naming destinations. The most elite are National Parks — a title that Congress has only granted to 63 sites.
Ocmulgee is on track to become the 64th National Park, the only one in Georgia, but progress hit a snag last week when NPS officials testified that the park should not be upgraded to Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve.
Designation as a National Park would include a historic partnership with members of the Creek Nation working directly with NPS on land management, cultural preservation and operations. The Nation would have direct responsibility as the storytellers of the land; that is, they would be empowered to tell their own story. They could hire Creek citizens to work at the park, and they could make sure the arts and crafts sold at the park are authentic instead of replicas.
I don’t think members of the Creek Nation would be cool with selling whitewashed or neutralized versions of their own history in the gift shop or bookstore.
We know what happens when history is recast in the positive light that Trump is seeking.
At the time of his death, Martin Luther King, Jr. had lower approval ratings than Trump. His high approval ratings today, from Americans of all stripes, are not merely the result of a shift in American tolerance. It is also the result of our collective ignorance.
By focusing King’s legacy primarily on footage of non-violent marches and clips of his 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial, we have been taught to gloss over his more radical viewpoints that challenged American militarism, economic disparities and most policies of the U.S. Government.
When President Ronald Reagan made MLK Jr. Day a federal holiday, he shared his strategy in letters to angry political allies. His plan to push a sanitized image of King that represented a colorblind America and would signal to all that racism in America had ended was largely successful.
Trump wants us to believe that his decisions are focused on promoting the majesty of American lands, but that too would be an erasure of history.
In 2017, it was Trump who reduced 85% of Bears Ears National Monument in Southeastern Utah, leaving areas of cultural and archaeological importance vulnerable to mining and other commercial activities. Joe Biden restored the monument to its original size in 2021.
Attempting to purge American history of sexism, racism and all the other evils inherent in the evolution of this country is not just wrong, it is dangerous. Doing it under the guise of protecting American achievement and the beauty of the American landscape is downright deceitful.
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