The National Park Service has ordered three quotes removed from banners at the Bunker Hill Monument that comment on American slavery, the contributions of immigrants, and the purpose of war memorials.
The quotes hang in the Bunker Hill Lodge, which serves as an entrance to the 221-foot-high monument, and flank a statue of patriot leader Joseph Warren, who was killed June 17, 1775, in the first large-scale battle of the Revolution.
Staff for US Senator Edward J. Markey confirmed the quotes are due to be removed. At the park on Friday, National Park Service rangers declined to comment on when the quotes would be taken down.
The planned removal, first reported by The Washington Post, marks another move by federal officials to erase interpretive language at national parks and elsewhere that speaks to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Some preservationists equated the move with government censorship.
“Censoring the contributions of any people that came before us would go against the very ideals that were fought for at this place,” said Kristen Sykes, Northeast regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group. “Our national parks belong to all of us. Visitors deserve the chance to learn our struggles and triumphs alike, free of government censorship.”
The targeted quotes include one from a 19th-century abolitionist who mocked the existence of American slavery 70 years after the battle. Another assails the anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States that proliferated a century after the Revolutionary encounter, and a third, from anti-war Vietnam veterans, argues that memorials should honor the living rather than the dead.
Markey called the removal, “censorship.”
“The Trump administration’s patriotism is weak enough to be threatened by American voices and American history, so they try to silence it with the implicit consent of Republicans in Congress,” he said.
And on Friday, Governor Maura Healey assailed the decision as a “disgrace.”
The plan to remove the quotes comes as the 251st anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill is approaching. It also comes about a year after the Trump administration targeted National Park signs, statues, and other public monuments that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”
A spokesperson for the Interior Department, which oversees the parks service, pushed back against the criticism.
“Efforts to transform a routine exhibit refresh into a story attacking President Trump and this administration is tired, and the American people see through it,” the spokesperson said in a statement to the Globe.
“Through President Trump, we have encouraged Americans to visit our cultural and historic sites and engage in meaningful conversations about the moments that have shaped our country,“ the spokesperson said.
One of the three quotes targeted for removal was written by G.B. Stebbins to Boston abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison on May 22, 1846.
“As we drew near to Boston, there stood Bunker Monument, towering up towards the heavens, as if in silent, bitter mockery of the millions of slaves guarded by the professed lovers of Liberty, who reared its lofty column,” Stebbins wrote.
Another quote came from an anti-war editorial printed in The Boston Globe in 1971 by Arthur Johnson and Bestor Cram of Vietnam War Veterans Against the War.
“We find, upon reflection, that our duty to our country has not ended. ... We, as Vietnam veterans, strongly feel that the United States should cease to build memorials to death and begin to glorify life,” they wrote.
The third quote was published May 8, 1875, in The Pilot, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston, and was addressed “To Our Irish Societies.” At the time, the Charlestown neighborhood around the monument had been heavily settled by Irish immigrants.
“Now that a public orator has declared that foreign-born men have no association with the men of the Revolution, it is our duty to show that in love of freedom and loyalty to the republic, the citizens of foreign birth take no second place,” the quote said.
The Post reported that a federal review of the site’s materials followed a complaint by a visitor who complained that another quote, related to women’s suffrage, represented “woke” feminist ideology.
But several tourists who were visiting the monument on Friday questioned the plan to remove the quotes.
Jason Powell, a retired history teacher originally from Boston, traveled from Louisville, Ky., to visit family and came to Bunker Hill to see the three quotes after learning of the removal order.
He called the federal government’s move “disturbing” and said the country must confront the tragedies and oppression of the past, not ignore them, to move forward.
“I feel like we’ve stalled out, which is really tragic,” he said. “In fact, we’re not stalling. We’re backsliding.”
Clint Kovach, 47, a US history teacher in Gainesville, Fla., said the quote regarding slavery should stand to acknowledge the ongoing oppression of Black people despite their contributions to the country.
“African Americans have fought in every single war continuously hoping for equality, and every time they come out of it and it’s like, ‘Hey, thanks for your service, but you’re still a second-class citizen,’ ” Kovach said.
As a history teacher, Kovach said, he feels a responsibility to cover all perspectives in the American narrative, even in Florida where the state has rewritten or removed portions of textbooks.
“If I teach something and the kids disagree with it, then that’s fine. It’s their decision,” Kovach said. “If you’re going to build an argument based on what you believe, you have to hear what the other side has to say.”
On Thursday evening, a visitor from the Czech Republic said he was puzzled by the plan.
“I don’t see the sense in removing them,” said Josef Kracik, 35. “They’re helpful for tourists and for local citizens to get to know the history.”
Kyera Singleton, executive director of the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford, called the plan “extremely upsetting and disappointing.”
“We’re in the midst of a celebration of freedom, and we’re being reminded of ‘freedom for whom?’ and ‘freedom for whose stories?’“ Singleton said. “You can’t talk about that battle without talking about the men of color who put their lives on the line there.”
Globe Correspondent Chloe Pisani and Kathy McCabe, Jim Puzzanghera, and Camilo Fonseca of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez. Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_. Brian MacQuarrie can be reached at brian.macquarrie@globe.com.