Juneteenth Event Highlights Exhibits Removed From National Parks

Friday marks the 161^st anniversary of Juneteenth, when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to announce that enslaved people were freed two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.  

In West Virginia – and across the nation — it’s also a chance to learn about history that’s not currently on display. 

When park ranger Elizabeth Kerwin was forced out of her job by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), she was at the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park working on an exhibit about African Americans in West Virginia. Then, under Executive Order 14253 entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” President Donald Trump ordered exhibits of divisive or race-centered ideology removed from federal buildings and sites.  

Kerwin’s exhibit was never finished. 

“It’s very telling that there’s an empty exhibit with the title above it, African American History. That was supposed to be here for you,” Kerwin said. 

She’s now part of a group known as Resistance Rangers, comprised of off-duty, fired and retired National Park Service employees who have launched the America 433+ campaign. Their aim is to draw attention to historic events they say are being censored, or whitewashed. 

The public, she said, should be able to contemplate African American history, see the complexity of it, and find the names of actual people who’d been enslaved here. 

“Frederick Douglass is here, W.E.B. Du Bois is here, and Harriet Tubman was invited to be here. Hundreds of thousands of people found their freedom here eventually. Mothers and fathers sacrificed everything to keep their families together. We have stories like that,” Kerwin said. 

Friday at Harpers Ferry National Park she and others will present a teach-Iin they hope will shed light on a difficult history.  

“It’s to show you what what’s being hidden from you, the understanding of Harpers Ferry as such a tremendously important site to American history, and particularly to the struggle for freedom.”  

The event begins at 1 p.m. at the Railroad Berm section of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. The visitor’s center is located at 171 Shoreline Drive in Harpers Ferry, and offers a shuttle to the presentation site. Call (304) 535-6029 for more information.