Following a threatened crackdown on what he his administration called “corrosive ideology” in American museums, Donald Trump has ordered a national park to remove a famous photograph of a formerly enslaved man baring his scarred back.
The Washington Post, which first reported the news on Monday night, did not specify which park would be impacted by the removal of the photograph and cited anonymous sources. But the article said it was one of “multiple” parks impacted by the orders, which target “signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks,” per the article.
Taken in 1863, the photograph shows a man who may have been named Peter who escaped a plantation in Louisiana and was subsequently examined by doctors who discovered the web of scars on his back that resulted from repeated, brutal whipping. The image was reprinted widely at the time as proof of the horrors of enslavement that some Americans could not personally witness firsthand. Informally, the picture is known as The Scourged Back.
It remains a key image of its era. Artist Arthur Jafa, for example, has included versions of it in recent installations. The National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Gallery of Art, and many other museum own prints of it.
According to the Washington Post, Trump’s order called for the removal of information and signage at the Harpers Ferry National Historic Park in West Virginia. The President’s House Site in Philadelphia may also be impacted, staffers told the Post.
In March, in an executive order that targeted Smithsonian-run museums, Trump singled out Independence National Historical Park, whose displays, he claimed, put forward the notion that “America is purportedly racist.”
A Parks Service spokesperson confirmed to the Post that exhibits under the organization’s aegis were under review, saying, “Interpretive materials that disproportionately emphasize negative aspects of U.S. history or historical figures, without acknowledging broader context or national progress, can unintentionally distort understanding rather than enrich it.”
It is not the first time Trump’s administration has gone after displays related to enslavement. In August, Trump claimed that the Smithsonian’s museums emphasize “how bad Slavery was,” a further sign that they were “OUT OF CONTROL.”
