As the Trump administration continues its whitewashing of American history, a display at the nation’s most prestigious cemetery is undergoing changes. Information criticizing the Confederacy is being removed to make way for the return of a Confederate monument that was removed years earlier.

Administration replaces information critical of Confederacy at Arlington and online

The Trump administration recently replaced an informational plaque from Arlington National Cemetery that was critical of the Confederacy. The outgoing plaque, which had been installed after a Confederate Memorial was removed from the site, explained that the Confederate sculpture had depicted a “nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.” Specifically, it pointed out that the Confederate memorial depicted a stereotypical “Mammy” figure and an enslaved man dutifully following a slaveholder into war. This critical discussion has now been removed from Arlington. Similarly critical information about the Confederate Memorial has also been scrubbed from a Department of Defense webpage that previously discussed the removal of the monument from Arlington.

By contrast to the deleted information, the Trump administration is claiming that its new plaque provides “historical context” for the Confederate Memorial. “Driven by a renewed sense of national unity following the Spanish-American War, in 1900 Congress authorized the reburial of Confederate remains in ‘some suitable spot’ at Arlington National Cemetery,” reads the plaque that has now been installed at the cemetery. Discussion of the controversy surrounding the memorial has been omitted. The Trump-installed plaque also notes that the Confederate Memorial was created by “sculptor and Confederate veteran Moses Ezekiel” on behalf of the Daughters of the Confederacy, while omitting that Ezekiel and his sculpture promoted the discredited “Lost Cause” narrative that painted the Confederacy in a positive light.

Trump administration plans to restore Confederate Memorial removed by Congress

The change comes ahead of the administration’s plan to restore the Confederate Memorial itself, which held a prominent place at Arlington from the time it was erected there in 1914 until its removal in 2023. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has vowed to remove “woke DEI s**t” from the United States military, pledged in 2025 to restore the statue. “I’m proud to announce that Moses Ezekiel’s beautiful and historic sculpture — often referred to as ‘The Reconciliation Monument’ — will rightfully be returned to Arlington National Cemetery near his burial site,” Hegseth posted, using an alternative name for the Confederate Memorial. “It never should have been taken down by woke lemmings,” Hegseth added. “Unlike the Left, we don’t believe in erasing American history—we honor it.”

The new plaque at Arlington says that the Confederate Monument is undergoing “comprehensive conservation and refurbishment” and will be returned to its previous spot in the cemetery in 2027. This move to restore a Confederate monument is consistent with the Trump administration’s larger agenda of whitewashing American history, which has included censoring information critical of slavery and racism, while also removing information commemorating Black military veterans’ service and sacrifices. The current plan to restore the Confederate Memorial to Arlington may also be illegal. The sculpture was removed in 2023 to satisfy an act of Congress that required Confederate names and symbols be removed from military installations. As Blavity previously reported, Congress rejected a 2024 bill that would have restored the memorial. It is therefore unclear what authority the Trump administration and Secretary Hegseth are invoking in order to bring back the memorial.

Regardless of the legality of their moves, it appears that Trump and Hegseth are determined to push a narrative of American history that downplays the evils of slavery and the impact of anti-Black racism. Now, this agenda is set to be on display at the most prominent institution dedicated to honoring deceased members of the United States military.