By Ashraf Khalil
Washington (AP) – The National Park Service overthrew the changes and restored content on its web page on Harriet Tubman and the clandestine railway following reports and public reaction on changes.
“The modifications made to the clandestine railway page on the National Park Service website were made without approval of the management of the NPS or the department management,” said NPS spokesperson Rachel Pawlitz, late Monday in an email. “The web page was immediately restored to its original content.”
She did not say who ordered the changes or for what reason. The modifications – reported for the first time by the Washington Post – included the deletion of the image of Tubman at the top of the page and the creation of several modifications to the text. An analysis side by side of the pages, using the Internet Wayback machine archive, revealed changes that have deleted references to slavery and changed descriptions on the problem and its brutal realities.
For example, the original opening sentence has referred to the main role of the railway in “Resistance to slavery by escape and theft”. The published version called the railroad “one of the most important expressions of the American civil rights movement” and described how it “wrote the cleavages of the race, religion, differences in section and nationality”.
The question comes in the midst of government’s changes that have swept resistance from President Donald Trump’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the federal government. In some cases, managers were blurred to delete, then restore online content as the changes have been revealed.
Trump has also targeted the Smithsonian Network of Museums, which includes the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. He instructed the vice-president JD Vance to direct the effort to purge what Trump called “an incorrect ideology” in the representations of the Smithsonian of American history.
Among public controversies was the wholesale pages of the Pentagon who is linked to the contributions of speakers of the Navajo code in the military career of the legend of the legend of the Jackie Robinson baseball. These two pages were quickly restored when the deletions attracted public outcry.
When the modification of Harriet Tubman was revealed for the first time, NPS officials recognized the changes, but denied any intention to minimize his role or to soften the realities of the history of America with slavery.
“We celebrate it as a deeply spiritual woman who has lived her ideals and devoted her life to freedom,” said Pawlitz, citing dozens of pages around her, as well as two parks named for her. “The idea that a web couple somehow modifies invalidate the commitment of the National Park Service to tell complex and stimulating historical accounts is completely false.”
The revelation of NPS changes led to an immediate reaction of civil rights figures. Bernice King, daughter of the Rev
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
