MAINE MORNING STAR • October 20, 2025
Save Our Signs is a nationwide effort to document and preserve the signs at sites operated by the National Park Service, activism against the Trump administration’s censorship, which both looms and grows. After the Trump administration threatened to scrub language on signs at national historic sites, the organizers of Save Our Signs nudged a phalanx of photographers to submit images. Consider the federal employees who spent days and weeks of their professional lives creating these historical displays. You’ll find even more patriotism if you join me in appreciating the folks who created the Save Our Signs website. The dedication that they show to free speech and their opposition to censorship hold up the First Amendment. Add to that their commitment to telling America’s full story, an honest effort pointing our nation in a virtuous direction, rather than the Trump administration’s threats to tamp down historical truths. Staring in the face of all that patriotism — the federal employees, the amateur photographers, the website creators — is the grim possibility that these signs might begin to disappear. ~ Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism