A website of the National Parks Service on the underground railroad has been restored to its original state months after it changed to eliminate the abolitionist leader Harriet Tubman from the top of the page.
He “What is underground railroad?“Page presented a photo and quote from Tubman as main elements on the page, followed by a text that explains the importance of the underground railroad in the transport of enslaved people to freedom and off the south. The page was altered to eliminate Tubman in early February, according to the data of the backward machine, the image, the image with a postal service collage under the railroad that highlights” Black/White Cooperation, “Cooperation” Whital Cooperation, “”.
The change also altered the text to market the underground railroad as a bridge for “the divisions of race, religion, sectional differences and nationality” instead of “resistance to slavery through escape and flight.”
The mentions of the 1850 fugitive slave law were also eliminated before the restoration, together with historical cards of enslaved peoples fighting to achieve freedom and a mural of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, the first black regiment composed of the servants in the north. Since then, all these elements have been added in their original states.
“Changes on the underground railway page on the National Parques Service website were made without the approval of NPS leadership or department leadership. The website was immediately restored to its original content,” the NPS said in a statement on Tuesday to ABC News.
Harriet Tubman is shown in this 1871 portrait.
Congress Library through Getty Images
The NPS is an office of the Department of the Interior, and two NPS anonymous employees told the Washington Post that the appointed politicians of the Department of Interior ordered the high career officials to identify the web pages to change, which were then sent to the administration for consideration in the midst of the impulse of the Trump administration against the initiatives of diversity, equity and inclusion. However, employees told The Washington Post that they did not know if the recommendations were the direct reason for any move on the website.
“The elimination of the image and appointment of Harriet Tubman on the” underground railway “website of the National Parks Service”, is worrying, “civil rights lawyer Ben Crump Posted in x While Tubman was still scrubbed of the page. “The legacy of Tubman and the resistance of enslaved people should never be diminished. We must be in the truth of our history!”
Bernice King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, argued that elimination was “an attack on truth, an attempt to erase the story that would help us improve society today, a refusal to be uncomfortable and committed to changing harmful policies and practices.”
He Washington Post research Posted on Friday pointed out these changes and others of the NP. His analysis of thousands of NPS websites found several changes in language to change the name of racially loaded moments in the history of the United States or eliminate references to slavery completely.
A page about Benjamin Franklin’s opinions about slavery was eliminated, and some mentions of prominent figures such as the enslaved people of Thomas Stone were omitted.
This occurs in the midst of a greater effort of the Trump administration to purge from the government’s web pages.
Last month, the Department of Defense said that “Jackie Robinson’s army service” eliminated by mistake, as well as other content, including a page that honored the 60th anniversary of US troops, in their effort to eliminate Dei from their sites.
Actress Viola Davis, who plays Tubman in an HBO -free biographical film, went to Instagram On Monday to share comments on the situation, saying that the editions were “minimizing Harriet Tubman and slavery.”
“Really? !! Harriet Tubman?” She wrote in the subtitle. “Raise this icon of American history is decreasing? !!! Delete?! Man ….. Lord …
