Quiet as it’s kept, on February 1st, the United States has observedßß National Freedom Day, commemorating President Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the resolution that became the 13th Amendment, the constitutional change that abolished slavery in America.
This day celebrates not just a legal milestone, but the hard-won freedom of millions of enslaved people and America’s ongoing promise of liberty for all. Yet in 2026, as we mark this occasion, we face a troubling reality: the very history this day honors is being systematically erased from public view.
Just days ago, the National Park Service removed an exhibit titled “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” from Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. Workers dismantled panels that told the stories of nine people enslaved by George Washington, removing educational materials that explored the profound contradiction between America’s founding ideals and the brutal reality of slavery.
This wasn’t an isolated incident of historical curation. It was ordered by the administration of President Donald Trump as part of a broader directive to eliminate what they call “corrosive ideology” from national heritage sites.
The irony is devastating. On a day meant to celebrate freedom from bondage, we’re witnessing a different kind of unfreedom: the suppression of truth. When the administration labels accurate historical information as disparaging to Americans, when they erase acknowledgment of slavery from the very sites where our nation was founded, they tell Black Americans — and all Americans — that some truths are too uncomfortable to face.
This erasure extends beyond Philadelphia. The administration has removed diversity and inclusion materials from National Park Service gift shops and eliminated free admission on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and Juneteenth, while making Trump’s birthday a free admission day instead. These aren’t administrative decisions; they’re deliberate statements about whose history matters and whose freedom we’re willing to celebrate.
National Freedom Day matters now more than ever precisely because forces exist that would rather we forget. As attorney Michael Coard, who is working with efforts to have the Philadelphia memorial restored, noted, this is “blatantly racist” erasure. When we cannot learn about slavery, we cannot fully understand freedom. When we sanitize our founding to exclude the enslaved people who built this nation, we dishonor both their suffering and their resilience. True patriotism doesn’t demand we ignore our failures—it requires we face them honestly, learn from them, and recommit to the ideals of liberty and justice for all.
