President Trump’s mobile museums commemorating America’s 250th anniversary, dubbed “Freedom Trucks,” are rolling out and traversing the nation.
The jazzed-up traveling exhibit brings the story of America’s founding directly to communities across the nation, according to Freedom 250, a White House-backed public-private partnership operating as a limited liability company under the National Park Foundation.
The semi-trucks use a vast array of interactive elements to depict how the 13 colonies declared independence from Britain. The displays include an AI-generated George Washington and kiosks where visitors can sign their names digitally to the Declaration of Independence.
The “Are you a loyalist or patriot” quiz, modeled as a George Vs. George activity — King George III and George Washington — sits on the wall next to descriptions of the battles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill.
A wall of 50 American heroes includes educators, artists and fighters: evangelist Billy Graham, singer Aretha Franklin, Olympian Jesse Owens, entertainer Frank Sinatra, musician Louis Armstrong, civil rights activist Rosa Parks, professional boxer Muhammad Ali and German-born physicist Albert Einstein.
Six Freedom Trucks will visit schools, fairs and communities across the country through early December, according to PragerU’s tour dates. They were deployed to the Great American State Fair in the District of Columbia last week.
They made their first stop in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Jan. 21, and by June 12, the trucks had already visited 64 locations across 23 states and hosted over 100,000 visitors.
Freedom 250 spokesperson Rachel Reisner said that the organization “is sparking a unifying movement across all 50 states that celebrates the American spirit and showcases our nation at its best.”
The trucks include religious undertones of American history, sparking backlash. Democratic lawmakers have accused Freedom 250 of presenting an overtly religious version of American history.
Created by the Trump administration in partnership with the Freedom 250 initiative, the trucks were developed using content from conservative educational organizations. PragerU curated the roadshow multimedia, interactive exhibits and AI features, Hillsdale College provided historical and educational content, and political commentator Glenn Beck’s American Journey Experience contributed historical documents and artifacts.
PragerU — not an accredited academic institution but a multimedia company — has been criticized in some academic circles for presenting a rosier, more sanitized version of American history.
The company’s CEO, Marissa Streit, said that the Freedom 250 commission pitched the Freedom Trucks idea to her organization. The content was gifted to the commission at a cost of about $1 million, on the condition that the company not be compensated with government funds.
Ms. Streit told The Boston Globe that the trucks are intended to be apolitical and focused on “the bigger picture of what kind of country it is that we’ve inherited,” which also “includes teaching the good and the bad.”
Hillsdale’s Matthew Spalding, who served as an academic adviser to the Freedom Trucks, told Inside Higher Ed that the college wanted to focus on what he believes is the straightforward narrative that emerged from the nation’s founding.
“A lot of modern history doesn’t tell the narrative anymore; all they do is focus on these other things, so it wasn’t to exclude those things, but to tell the main parts of the story,” he said.
