07/16/2025
Exhibit removals at SC historical sites are concern for former park employees after Trump directive
By Anna Sharpe [email protected]
Jul 14, 2025
SULLIVAN’S ISLAND — A former National Park Service employee spent four decades at Fort Moultrie, transforming how the national historic site conveyed the stories of the Revolutionary War-era grounds.
But in light of recent directives from the Trump administration, he's worried that effort could be undone.
Michael Allen worked at the Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter historical sites for roughly 40 years. His work shaped much of how the National Park Service site looks today.
Recently, signs were posted at all National Park Service sites seeking feedback from visitors. The signs ask for comments related to any areas that need repair or services that need improvement.
They also instruct visitors to report any "signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans," including messaging that fails to "emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features."
The first two requests are standard, Allen said. It's the third and final line on the signs he has trouble with.
The National Parks Service is asking the public for feedback from visitors who heard, saw or experienced anything that put America in a "negative" light at the Charles Pinckney House on Thursday, July 10, 2025, in Mount Pleasant.
"Being in this environment and climate that we're in now, I'm concerned," Allen said.
He said he's worried the feedback could be used to remove installations about people and events that have often been untold.
Allen helped push for the inclusion of information on the experiences of enslaved Africans who were brought to the United States and quarantined in pestilence houses in the 18th century.
A bench was installed at the site in 2008, placed and maintained by the park service to provide a space for visitors to reflect on the arduous journey from Africa to Charleston that hundreds of thousands were forced to take.
The Bench by the Road is tucked near the Intracoastal Waterway at the Fort Moultrie Visitor’s Center, inspired by the words of famed poet Toni Morrison. It was the first of 20 benches installed as part of the Toni Morrison Society’s Bench by the Road Project.
The bench helps to tell a fuller, more inclusive — and often more accurate — rendition of well-known slices of American history, Allen said.
“A Bench by the Road” poem is seen at Fort Moultrie, Thursday, July 10, 2025, on Sullivan’s Island.
"Having that bench there helps to convey a message, helps to tell a story," Allen said. "But it also fills a narrative that has not always been presented."
Allen, as well as park advocates and historians, worry that exhibits and installation like the Bench by the Road at Fort Moultrie, could go away.
A directive from Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on May 20 gave staff at all national historic sites a 90-day deadline to review all public-facing monuments, memorials and markers, and catalog anything inappropriate or that disparages any American, alive or dead, including those that lived in colonial times. That deadline expires on Aug. 18.
Thirty days after that deadline, or on Sept. 17, content fitting that criteria must be removed and replaced by information that focuses on American achievements and progress.
"I would just not want that bench that's there, the first one that was placed as part of (Morrison's) program, to be gone," Allen said. "Just as well as I would not want African passages taken out of the Visitor Center at Fort Moultrie."
The directive quickly received pushback from historians and the National Parks Conservancy Association, a nonprofit advocacy group.
"The Trump administration is trying to erase and rewrite history. But that’s not what the American people want," Theresa Pierno, president and CEO for the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement. "Our national parks should reflect the full complexity of the land, its beauty, its past, and the people who have shaped it for generations."
Harper McKenna, 10, stands next to her grandmother Shelley Miller as she takes a National Park Service pledge at Fort Moultrie, Thursday, July 10, 2025, on Sullivan’s Island.
South Carolina is home to one national park, Congaree National Park in Hopkins, and a handful of sites that commemorate historic figures, battles and time periods.
According to survey responses spanning June 6 to June 16 obtained by the NPCA and provided to The Post and Courier, only three South Carolina-based sites were the subject of visitor feedback, which were mostly positive.
"The park takes a very complex time in American history and seeks to tell the story. Thank you for all your work," one visitor wrote of the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park in Beaufort, a relatively new park that tells the story of newly freed African Americans in the late 19th century.
A similar comment was submitted on June 12 regarding the Kings Mountain National Military Historical Site (site of an important American victory in the Revolutionary War), applauding the "exemplary" rangers that staff the park.
There was one brief complaint made about Congaree National Park on June 10.
"Too many mosquitos," the visitor wrote.
Phil Francis started his decades-long career in the parks service at the Kings Mountain National Military Park in Blacksburg. In his retirement, he serves as a member and chairman of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, a nonprofit organization made up of past parks employees and volunteers.
Charles Pinckney House.JPG
The Charles Pinckney House, Thursday, July 10, 2025, in Mount Pleasant.
Andrew Whitaker/Staff
Francis said the feedback initiative is another attempt from the Trump administration to de-value the agency.
Several sites are already feeling the effects of slashed budgets and staffing shortages. History, and the NPS sites that are tasked with educating the American people, are apolitical, he added, and they should stay that way.
Burgum's "idea was not to make things better, but to find critical comments so that they could pursue their agenda," Francis said. "These parks are owned by everyone, and this is about the history of our country, and about the natural and cultural resources of our country. This is something really special. As someone said, it's America's best idea."
Reach Anna Sharpe at 843-806-6790.
Anna Sharpe covers Mount Pleasant, Isle of Palms, Sullivan's Island and Folly Beach for the Post and Courier. She graduated from Winthrop University. She previously wrote for the Moultrie News in Mount Pleasant.
https://www.postandcourier.com/charleston_sc/fort-moultrie-history-removal-national-sites-sc/article_3cbfd90f-c506-446d-b98b-e398a2aeb538.html
