A photo of Section 43 of Arlington National Cemetery, Va., in 2017. The cemetery’s 651 acres is the final resting place for more than 400,000 service members, veterans and their families. (Arlington National Cemetery)
Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place of presidents, generals, Medal of Honor recipients and more than 400,000 service members and their families, has purged its website of material focused on Black, Hispanic, and female troops buried there, officials confirmed Friday.
The purge was a response to President Donald Trump’s executive order to remove materials related to “DEI”— diversity, equity, and inclusion — from government websites, Arlington officials said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later issued an order to remove materials highlighting race and gender as part of a Pentagon “digital content refresh.”
However, Arlington officials also said materials could be restored after review and possible revision to meet the requirements of Trump’s and Hegseth’s orders.
“We remain committed to sharing the stories of military service and sacrifice to the nation with transparency and professionalism, while continuing to engage with our community in a manner that reflects our core values,” a statement from Arlington officials read.
The changes to the website were first brought to light this week in “Civil War Memory,” a newsletter published on the Substack social media site by historian Kevin Levin.
Among some of the changes were “modules” dealing with the Civil War, African-American history and women’s history.
Before January, the website included lists of prominent Black people and famous women buried at Arlington. While the individual graves still turn up on website searches, lists grouping the dead by race or gender do not.
The webpage citing “Notable Graves” had subsections, including one for African Americans. The link to the list has been taken down.
Famous Black Americans buried at Arlington include Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, champion boxer Joe Louis, assassinated civil rights activist Medgar Evers, and several Tuskegee Airmen — the first group of Black combat pilots in World War II.
The webpage on women’s history has been taken down, which featured more than a dozen women, including First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and World War II combat photographer Marguerite Higgins.
