National park goers will not get free admission on Martin Luther King Jr. Day – a change from years past.
When the National Park Service announced free-entrance days for 2026, both Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth were left off the list. They were replaced by other days, including Flag Day on June 14, which is also President Trump’s birthday.
The shift to remove the days tied to Black history was condemned by Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of NAACP.
"Removing MLK Day and Juneteenth from the national parks calendar is more than petty politics — it's an attack on the truth of this nation's history,” Johnson said in a statement.
The National Park Service started free entry days in 2009. The selection and number of days have varied, but Martin Luther King Jr. Day has been on the list ever since 2011.
To Omar Montgomery, the president of the NAACP Rocky Mountain state conference for Colorado, Montana and Wyoming, the day’s removal felt like an effort by the Trump Administration to undermine and erase the contributions of Black people in the United States.
“If the federal government is sending the message that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a day that we don't have special accommodations for people to get into national parks for free,” he said, “then what you're saying is, this day is also not important for our schools to be able to talk about the holiday.”
NAACP said the removal of free entry days followed other actions by the Trump Administration to suppress Black history. According to reporting by The Washington Post, National Park Service officials last year ordered the removal of interpretive materials related to slavery.
The National Park Service did not respond to a request for comment on this story. The changes to free entrance days coincided with other policy shifts, including special fees for international visitors.
Even with no waived entry this year, several park service sites and nonprofits are continuing to hold days of service to honor the civil rights leader’s legacy.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
