National Parks Now Free on Trump’s Birthday, but Not on Black Holidays

The Trump administration removed free national park access on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, while adding it for President Trump’s birthday.

Now, two federal holidays that celebrate Black American history will be ticketed—from around $3 to $30—while Trump’s birthday on June 14 is free entry.

This change, first reported by SFGATE, is emblematic of the small-scale, antagonistic ways in which Trump wages his MAGA culture war on any federal mention of Black history in America, or any minority group for that matter.

The NPS has been a battleground for much of that war. Since taking office for the second time, Trump has ordered the removal of signs and exhibits documenting American slavery, including an iconic 1863 portrait of an ex-slave, often referred to as either Peter or Gordon, and the brutal whipping scars on his “scourged back.”

He signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to erase any information that could be misconstrued as a “corrosive ideology,” which of course included anything relating to race relations, LGBTQ rights, and sexism. He also removed a picture of Harriet Tubman from the National Park Service page on the Underground Railroad, and changed the words “enslaved African Americans” to “enslaved workers” while removing a section that discussed Benjamin Franklin being a slave owner.

This move is spiteful and self-centered, and a perfect opportunity for the president to center himself while punching down on MLK Day and Juneteenth in the name of MAGA.