Overview
- Two informational panels honoring African American service members were taken down from the visitors’ center at the Netherlands American Cemetery, with the Black Liberators project confirming they are not on display.
- The American Battle Monuments Commission says exhibits are designed to rotate and states the George H. Pruitt panel is not out of rotation, a rationale critics say does not address the removal of the panel on segregation.
- Local officials in Limburg say they were not notified of the change, and eleven provincial parties issued a joint statement calling the removal indecent and unacceptable.
- Limburg King’s Commissioner Emile Roemer plans to meet the U.S. ambassador and says he will urge the commission to restore the panels, as provincial leaders explore options to replace the plaques.
- The site holds more than 8,200 American graves and about 1,700 names of the missing, and researchers note 174 African American soldiers are buried or memorialized there, including George H. Pruitt, whose story featured on one of the removed panels.