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Racial reckoning turns focus to roadside historical markers

In Pennsylvania, the new markers getting approved are increasingly telling the stories of previously underrepresented people and groups.
Credit: AP
Shown is a Pennsylvania Historical Marker for Revolutionary War Gen. Anthony Wayne in Paoli, Pa., Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021. A recent review of all 2,500 markers the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission had been installing for more than a century, faced a fresh round of questions about just whose stories were being told on the state's roadsides, and the language used to tell them. The increased scrutiny that has focused on factual errors, inadequate historical context and racist or otherwise inappropriate references, prompting the state to remove two markers, revise two and order new text for two others so far. The changes have become grist for the political mill. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania is undertaking a comprehensive examination of the stories told by its 2,500 roadside historical markers. 

The state has undertaken a review of the markers, prompted in part by the 2017 racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. It's a process that's found factual errors, inadequate historical context and inappropriate references. 

So far the state has removed two markers, revised two and ordered new text for two others. 

Disputes about how historical markers should be worded — or whether they should exist at all — have divided communities across the country in recent years. 

In Pennsylvania, the new markers getting approved are increasingly telling the stories of previously underrepresented people and groups.

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