The six traveling history museums that are part of President Trump’s Freedom 250 program aim to counter the “woke agenda.” Historians say important facts have been left out.
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NASHVILLE – Once inside a semi-trailer, visitors find wall-to-wall displays of watershed moments leading up to the American Revolution and its greatest battle.
Another exhibit, tucked away in a less obvious location, tells visitors that “America’s fundamental principles are rooted in Western and Judeo-Christian values.”
The 53-foot-tall mobile museum is one of six “Freedom Trucks” touring the country as ambassadors for President Donald Trump’s Freedom 250 program.
During a stop in Nashville for the National Association of Religious Broadcasters’ annual gathering in February, Marissa Streit, CEO of the conservative media organization PragerU, gave visitors a tour of the two-room museum that her firm helped design.
Streit said the references to America’s Judeo-Christian roots were an intentional and purposeful part of the truck’s design, aimed at counterbalancing an approach to the country’s history that she says misleads the American public.
“How can we provide that experience to people today who really want to know what’s going on, instead of learning what America was like based on some interpretation of the woke agenda,” she said. “We have talked about how intentionally taking the Bible out of the classroom has essentially destroyed the American education system.”
Streit believes her work counteracts partisan representations of American history. But critics of PragerU and its allies argue that the opposite is true, arguing that these new trucks will spread a misleading narrative about American history that strengthens Christian nationalist agendas.
The new mobile museum comes months after President Trump accused the government-run Smithsonian of being too “woke” and launched an overhaul of the museum aimed at rooting out “divisive ideology” and promoting “American exceptionalism.”
But watchdog groups and historians have criticized President Trump’s Freedom 250, calling it a taxpayer-funded propaganda campaign.
“The Trump administration has chosen very specifically who will be the face of Freedom 250,” said Warren Throckmorton, an expert on the movement’s narrative of Christian nationalism and U.S. history. “Evangelical Christians are the face of these efforts.”
Public-private collaboration amid conflicts over partisan history
Freedom 250, a subsidiary of the National Park Foundation, was created by the White House in December to fund President Trump’s vision for the nation’s milestone birthday. Since then, he has been accused of pushing right-wing, Christian views of the United States.
Mobile museums are the latest flashpoint. PragerU, a conservative nonprofit that produces educational and pro-American videos, partnered with Hillsdale College, a small Christian school in Michigan, to develop the Freedom 250 exhibit. The six museums travel to public schools, state fairs, and community events in eight states throughout the year.
Streit said the government is funding the project, but neither PragerU nor Hillsdale has received federal funding for the project.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency, awarded Freedom 250 a $10 million grant for the project in December, according to federal spending data.
Construction of a mobile museum
The idea for the Freedom Truck was originally conceived to emulate the Bicentennial “Freedom Train,” a historical traveling exhibit that criss-crosses the United States.
A Freedom 250 spokesperson said Hillsdale and PragerU were selected for their “extensive experience and expertise in creating educational content for students focused on America’s founding,” as well as their offer to create educational materials for the government free of charge.
According to Boston public radio station WBUR, PragerU’s civics curriculum has been approved for use in local schools in 10 states.
Hillsdale also creates the civics curriculum for the charter school network and is a pioneer in the movement to reinterpret American history from a Christian perspective. Hillsdale President Larry Ahn served as chairman of President Trump’s 1776 Commission, which was largely seen as a response to the 1619 Project, an effort launched by the New York Times to examine the role of slavery in America’s origins. In contrast, the 1776 Commission’s view of history emphasizes important victories such as the War of Independence.
The themes of freedom, responsibility and moral fortitude in PragerU’s civics curriculum, a key resource behind the traveling museum’s exhibits, provide a more “balanced perspective,” Streit said.
USA TODAY asked John Fee, a historian of American religion at Messiah College, to review photos of some of the exhibits.
He said that while much of the information is factually accurate, the information provided about Thomas Jefferson’s views on slavery is “an interpretive choice intended to advance a particular vision of America’s founding.”
The exhibit, titled “The Promise of Freedom,” notes that Jefferson “called the slave trade ‘a cruel war against human nature itself,'” but does not mention that he personally enslaved 607 men, women, and children, many of whom he chose not to free after death.
Other interactive exhibits allow visitors to speak directly to an AI-generated video of George Washington and sign their name at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence. QR codes direct visitors to PragerU’s online content.
Another exhibit invites people to choose figures from a variety of groups who endured despite persecution, including “Native Americans, soldiers and spies, freed blacks and slaves, women, and religious leaders.” A profile of Congregational minister Samuel West praised his May 1776 “inspiring sermon on the rights of the colonies to rebel against their colonial governors.”
Fair said that while West’s profile was accurate, he was surprised that West received so much attention given his stature as a historical figure.
“The issue here is not so much the content of the exhibit, but the choice of who to include and why,” Feer said.
Carissa Waddick, who covers America’s 250th anniversary for USA TODAY, can be reached at kwaddick@usatoday.com.
