(AURN News) — This Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Americans will not be able to visit national parks for free to mark the holiday with a hike or nature walk.
That is because the Trump administration removed Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from the National Park Service list of fee-free days.
The move comes as the Trump administration continues what it has openly described as a war against diversity initiatives. In the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, the administration has repeatedly argued that white Americans have been treated unfairly and has pursued policy changes it says are meant to correct that imbalance.
Federal data, however, continue to show that Black Americans face the highest unemployment rate of any racial group, earn less on average than other demographics, and have experienced sharper increases in unemployment during Trump’s second term compared with other groups.
While eliminating fee-free access on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, the administration added President Trump’s birthday, June 14, to the National Park Service calendar as a fee-free day.
The 2026 observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day comes amid growing concern in the Black community over how civil rights history and racial inequities are now being addressed at the federal level.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Trump made claims about discrimination against white Americans in higher education.
“White people were very badly treated, where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a university or college,” Trump said.
“It was a reverse discrimination,” he added, referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that white Americans continue to enroll in college at higher rates than Black Americans. In 2024, the college enrollment rate for white students stood at 41 percent, compared with 33 percent for Black students.
Click play to listen to the AURN News report from Jamie Jackson:
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