I recently visited Millersylvania State Park, near Olympia, WA.
Founded in 1923, the park lies within the original territories of the Coast Salish Indigenous people. In 1934, ten years after the park's founding, the Civilian Conservation Corps. a federal "New Deal" program established by FDR to improve facilities on public lands, assigned Black enrollees to work there alongside their white counterparts.
But this "integration" was short-lived as Black enrollees were required to sleep in separate barracks, forced to use separate bathrooms, and primarily confined to kitchen work, limiting their ability to gain valuable construction skills. In 1934, due to pressure from state and federal authorities, these Black CCC workers were reassigned out of state. In 1935, the CCC fully segregated all of its work camps.
Some of this shameful history is recounted on official park plaques. But the Trump administration is taking daily action to erase references in official documents to our nation's displacement of Native American populations, history of human enslavement, and the persistence of racist practices up to the present time. We do not benefit from this selective censorship as the opportunity for racial reconciliation is only possible by acknowledging (not hiding) our past history.
Ellen Sward
Vancouver
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