By Gerry James, Deputy Campaign Director, Sierra Club Outdoors For All
Over the past year, the Outdoors for All campaign has helped anchor the Club’s work in pushing back against Executive Order: 14253 and Interior Order: 3431: "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History " (aka, whitewashing of history at national parks and other public lands sites) as part of a broader effort to foster belonging in the outdoors, rooted in our mission to explore, enjoy, and protect. This includes working with the Club’s Environmental Law Program on litigation against Interior for withholding public records related to this morally bankrupt action by the Trump administration, organizing thousands of comments, and coordinating letters to DOI and Congress with partners. This month, I was on the ground, in community, at the epicenter of this fight, and I want to share a brief reflection from the Avenging the Ancestors Rally to Restore the Truth at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia.
First, I want to lift up the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, which has been at this work for more than two decades. They pushed for the memorial, helped shape its design, and have carried the responsibility of making sure it is protected. That kind of long-term commitment does not happen by accident. It happens because people refuse to let the truth be buried.
I also want to recognize the Pennsylvania Chapter and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Group (SPG) for anchoring the Club’s presence on the ground. SPG showed up strong, and that leadership mattered. Rebecca Deegan, Philly OFA organizer, thank you for connecting me with group leaders. Jim Wylie big ups for spreading the word, bringing a banner, and sharing those delicious cookies. Melissa Farr, thanks for hustling out an email over the weekend and Taylor McFarland over at the New Jersey chapter, thank you for amplifying the call. To all the SPG folks who braved the cold during Black History Month in support of the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, your presence meant more than words can say. You stood firm in the face of an administration that has shown a willingness to terrorize and use deadly force against citizens merely exercising their First Amendment rights, while also seeking to erase and rewrite the stories that belong to all of us. As someone whose ancestors endured and overcame the horrors of chattel slavery and helped build this country, I am deeply grateful. By gathering at the President’s House at Independence National Historical Park, you helped ensure that the lives of Austin, Christopher Sheels, Giles, Hercules, Joe Richardson, Moll, Oney Judge, Paris and Richmond - nine of the hundreds of Americans enslaved by George Washington, are remembered, honored, and carried forward.
When I was asked by a reporter why the Sierra Club is involved in this effort, I told them our roots to the parks go back more than a century. We helped advocate for the passing of the Organic Act of 1916, which created the National Park Service with the mandate, “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” This means not just protecting the land itself, it's also about honoring the full depth of the stories those places hold. The Good, The Bad, The Ugly. I shared that as a club we’ve had to reckon with our own history, and out of that reckoning, our movement continues to evolve. Today, we know conservation, bridging the nature equity gap, climate, social justice, and democracy are all deeply connected. That’s why we’re here now; to stand up against one of the most serious threats to the Park Service’s duty to tell the complete, complex story of our nation. If we allow that story to be erased, we undermine the very idea of public lands as places where we learn together, remember together, and practice democracy together.
As an Air Force veteran and former base honor guard member, it moved me to see SPG members taking shifts for hours holding up our guidon, a large, handmade Sierra Club sign, always visible behind speakers and prominent to all the media's cameras. That kind of presence matters. It shows that we as a Club stand shoulder to shoulder with a vibrant coalition: clergy from many faiths, Pan-Africanists, historians, organizers, elected officials, and neighbors who all know that Black history is American history.
If you haven’t already, please take a moment to complete and share our action alert; it sends a message directly to MoCs about stopping the erasure of history at parks/our shared public lands. Please help circulate ATAC’s Change.org petition, let's help get them to 10,000 signatures! As the administration floods the zone with removals and edits across the country I have a spreadsheet of sites that tell underrepresented or contested narratives I started working on last summer. I’ll be reaching out to Chapter leaders in states where these sites are located so we can be proactive and coordinated with partners like Tribal Nations, preservation/history groups, and descendants.
Lastly here are few media clips from the rally:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgtblSz5HjQ
#TellTheTruth #WeShallOvercome
This blog was included as part of the February 2026 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!