quasi Report This Comment
Date: September 19, 2025 10:50AM

From the OP:

"Trump is pushing to erase the historic photograph "The Scourged Back," also called "Whipped Peter," from national parks, museums, and public displays, aiming to remove it anywhere it educates Americans about slavery’s reality. The image was taken in April 1863 at a Union Army medical exam in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and shows the back of Peter, an escaped slave who had endured a vicious beating that left him with horrific keloid scars. Peter escaped from a plantation in Louisiana after months recovering from his wounds; when he reached Union lines, doctors examining him were shocked at the lasting evidence of the violence he had survived, prompting photographers McPherson & Oliver to document his scars.
Published in Harper’s Weekly later that year, the photograph of Peter’s scourged back became an abolitionist rallying point and one of the most widely circulated images of the Civil War era. Copies were sold and shared throughout the North, exposing the cruelty of slavery to Americans who had never witnessed such raw brutality. Peter’s story, recounted in newspaper reports, details how he was whipped so severely he was bedridden for two months, then risked his life to flee his master and eventually joined the US Colored Troops to fight for freedom.
Trump’s efforts to make this iconic photo disappear from our museums, national parks, and the Smithsonian amounts to pretending this ugly side of American history never happened, which is a crime against truth. The image and Peter’s story are integral to who we are; facing this painful legacy helps us reaffirm that such atrocities must never be allowed again. Removing this evidence dishonors those who suffered and undermines every commitment to honesty, equality, and justice. Anyway, you know what to do."