
For 15 years, Americans could walk into any national park for free on Martin Luther King Jr Day. That tradition ended this year.
The Trump administration quietly dropped MLK Day and Juneteenth from the National Park Service's fee-free calendar late last year. The replacement? Flag Day on 14 June, which happens to be President Donald Trump's birthday. The Department of the Interior, led by Secretary Doug Burgum, labelled the 2026 dates 'resident-only patriotic fee-free days' in a November announcement that drew immediate backlash from civil rights groups, NBC News reported.