To: U.S Congressional Representatives

Tell Congress: stop the censorship & defend the public servants who protect our 433+ national parks

Photo by Marco A. Esparza // Courtesy of Teaching for Change

To fulfill the promise of our national parks, we call on the U.S. Congress to stand with us to:

1. Protect the Full story of America

National parks should reflect the richness, complexity, and diversity of the American experience. Interpretation should include Black history, Indigenous history and presence, civil rights struggles, labor history, immigrant experiences, LGBTQ+ history, environmental justice, and the many communities whose stories have shaped this country.

2. Defend Science and Knowledge

Climate science, environmental research, cultural resources, archaeological findings, and public records must remain accessible, accurate, and free from political interference. Scientific knowledge belongs to the public and should remain available to future generations.

3. Preserve Public Memory

Archives, exhibits, educational materials, historic sites, monuments, oral histories, and cultural resources should be protected from censorship, suppression, alteration, or removal. Public memory is part of our national inheritance.

4. Honor Indigenous Sovereignty

Acknowledge that all National Parks are on Indigenous homelands and these landscapes and resources reflect the unique histories, living cultures, traditional ecological knowledge, and sovereign rights of Tribal Nations. These lands, resources, and histories should be collaboratively managed and interpreted based on meaningful consultation with Tribal Nations.

5. Invest in the Parks and People Who Protect Them

National parks cannot fulfill their mission without adequate staffing, resources, maintenance, and public investment. Rangers, scientists, historians, archaeologists, interpreters, maintenance workers, and other public servants are essential stewards of our shared heritage.

6. Keep Public Lands Accessible to All

National parks and public lands should remain accessible, welcoming, and accountable to the public. These places belong to all people and should serve the public interest, not political agendas or private interests.

7. Safeguard parks, places and stories for future generations

Conservation is not only about protecting landscapes. It is about safeguarding the stories, knowledge, cultures, and natural resources that future generations deserve to inherit.

Why is this important?

America 433+ is a national public education campaign and civic call to action responding to the growing attack, erasure, and distortion of our shared American story.

Our national parks are more than landscapes. They are places where people learn who we are, where we have been, and what we owe future generations. At the core of the mission of our nation’s 433 parks (and growing) is the preservation of the histories, cultures, knowledge, and natural resources that belong to all of us.

Tell Congress: stop the censorship in our 433+ national parks and defend the public servants who protect them.

The National Park Service was created by law in 1916 with a mission to steward and protect our nation's scenery, wildlife, natural resources, and historic treasures while ensuring they remain unimpaired for future generations. That mission remains as urgent today as ever.

Across the country, we are witnessing efforts to remove, suppress, alter, or diminish access to public history, scientific knowledge, Indigenous perspectives, and cultural interpretation. At the same time, chronic understaffing, resource shortages, and attacks on public institutions threaten the ability of our parks to fulfill their public mission.

America 433+ believes that public lands and institutions should tell the fullest story of this country. Protecting our parks means protecting public memory, scientific integrity, democratic access to knowledge, and the fullness of the American experience.