[Salon] Amid anti-DEI push, National Park Service rewrites history of Underground Railroad

[Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>]

Amid anti-DEI push, National Park Service rewrites history of
Underground Railroad

Since Trump took office, the park service -- an agency charged with
preserving American history -- has changed how its website describes
key moments from slavery to Jim Crow

Today at 8:01 a.m. EDT  The Washington Post

(Illustration by Lucy Naland/The Washington Post; Library of Congress;
National Park Service; iStock)
By Jon Swaine and Jeremy B. Merrill

For years, a National Park Service webpage introduced the Underground
Railroad with a large photograph of its most famous “conductor,”
Harriet Tubman. “The Underground Railroad — the resistance to
enslavement through escape and flight, through the end of the Civil
War — refers to the efforts of enslaved African Americans to gain
their freedom by escaping bondage,” the page began.

Tubman’s photograph is now gone. In its place are images of Postal
Service stamps that highlight “Black/White cooperation” in the secret
network and that feature Tubman among abolitionists of both races.

The introductory sentence is gone, too. It has been replaced by a line
that makes no mention of slavery and that describes the Underground
Railroad as “one of the most significant expressions of the American
civil rights movement.” The effort “bridged the divides of race,” the
page now says.

A National Park Service webpage titled ‘What is the Underground
Railroad?’ changed substantially after Trump took office. The text and
photograph in red were deleted, and the portions in green were added.
(NPS.org/Internet Archive)

The executive order that President Donald Trump issued late last month
directing the Smithsonian Institution to eliminate “divisive
narratives” stirred fears that the president aimed to whitewash the
stories the nation tells about itself. But a Washington Post review of
websites operated by the National Park Service — among the key
agencies charged with the preservation of American history — found
that edits on dozens of pages since Trump’s inauguration have already
softened descriptions of some of the most shameful moments of the
nation’s past.

Some were edited to remove references to slavery. On other pages,
statements on the historic struggle of Black Americans for their
rights were cut or softened, as were references to present-day echoes
of racial division. The Post compared webpages as of late March to
earlier versions preserved online by the Internet Archive’s Wayback
Machine.

Changes in images, descriptions and even individual words have subtly
reshaped the meaning of notable moments and key figures dating to the
nation’s founding — abolitionist John Brown’s doomed raid, the battle
at Appomattox and school integration by the Little Rock Nine.

An educational page on Benjamin Franklin, which examined his views on
slavery and his ownership of enslaved people, was taken offline last
month, the review found. Mentions of Thomas Stone, a signer of the
Declaration of Independence, owning enslaved people were removed from
several pages on the website of the Stone National Historic site in
Southern Maryland.

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A reference to other “enslaved African Americans” in that region was
changed to “enslaved workers.”

THOMAS STONE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, MARYLAND

Stone’s tenant farmers and enslaved population pressed some of the
fruit into cider, brandy, or vinegar.

After Trump took office, the words in red were deleted from a Thomas
Stone National Historic Site webpage. (NPS.org/Internet Archive)

Trump has pursued broad executive orders and other measures aimed at
dismantling “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs across the
public and private sectors. His Inauguration Day order targeting DEI
programs in government did not explicitly call for websites to be
edited. But it has been interpreted aggressively by some officials,
most notably at the Defense Department, which purged many pages that
celebrated notable minority veterans. After an outcry, some were later
restored.

At the Interior Department, which oversees the Park Service, political
appointees directed senior career officials to identify webpages that
might need to be changed, according to two Park Service employees, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution.

The senior career officials asked staff members to compile lists of
potentially problematic pages, the employees said. Those lists were
sent up the management chain for consideration. The employees did not
know whether the changes identified by The Post were made as a result
of this process, but one said that some staff members were expansive
in selecting pages for edits. The employee said staff members received
only vague guidance and that the selections were made amid a “frenzy
of fear,” at a time when thousands of federal workers were losing
their jobs.

“You draw as broad a brush as possible, because the consequences of
missing something are a lot more severe than the consequences of doing
too much,” the employee said.

A third NPS employee, also speaking on the condition of anonymity,
said that some webpage changes resulted not from demands from above,
but from lower-level employees seeking to comply with what they
believed Trump wanted.

An Interior spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on
the employees’ accounts.

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Asked about the website changes, a Park Service spokesperson offered a
statement but didn’t address specific edits. “The National Park
Service has been entrusted with preserving local history, celebrating
local heritage, safeguarding special places and sharing stories of
American experiences,” the statement said. “We take this role
seriously and can point to many examples of how we tell nuanced and
difficult stories about American history.”

The Post examined changes on thousands of Park Service webpages. The
vast majority were routine; a handful added mentions of slavery or
enslaved people. The Post could not identify every change made since
Trump took office, in part because the Wayback Machine’s archives are
not comprehensive.

On the website of Minute Man National Historical Park in Lincoln,
Massachusetts, a passage about the lack of recognition for Black
soldiers who fought for American independence was removed.

“Why don’t we hear more about this part of the American Revolution,”
the passage began, according to archived versions of the site.
“Unfortunately, systemic racism and historical bias have erased or
buried many records of Black and Indigenous people who played a
prominent role in the founding of the United States.”

A statement about the legacy of John Brown, who hoped to start a
revolt by enslaved people in the run-up to the Civil War, was removed
from a page on the website of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
in West Virginia.

“John Brown’s complex legacy remains a powerful symbol in America’s
ongoing dialogue on race, justice, and the fight against oppression,”
the line said.

Extensive changes were made to multiple Park Service pages about the
Underground Railroad, and a landing page directing children to
educational materials about it has been offline since last month.
Since 1998, the Park Service has been required by federal law to
recognize the Underground Railroad and to produce educational
materials about it.

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Andrew Diemer, a professor at Towson University and author of a book
on one of the network’s founders, said that while some White
abolitionists supported the Underground Railroad, changes identified
by The Post minimized the “legal and political forces” arrayed at the
time against enslaved African Americans.

“Overall, the revisions seek to emphasize ‘harmony’ and ‘unity’ and to
de-emphasize conflict in a way that is out of step with how historians
have written about the Underground Railroad in recent decades,” Diemer
said.

Other changes appear on the website of Appomattox Court House National
Historical Park in Virginia, where Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union
forces in April 1865, leading to the Civil War’s end.

One page, about the surrounding town, was rewritten in a way that
incorporated two new mentions of slavery in the years before the war.

But on other pages about the battle and the subsequent emancipation of
local enslaved people, all references to President Abraham Lincoln’s
views of the war were removed, as were some references to Union Army
commander Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s views. Some mentions of slavery were
cut, along with details of how White hostility in the area thwarted
the efforts of freed Black people to enter their society.

Greg Downs of the University of California at Davis, a specialist in
Civil War history who has written several Park Service publications,
said the changes warped history. “A country that cannot tell the truth
about itself cannot assess what has led it to moments of greatness in
the past and what could lead it again to greatness,” he said.

Alterations were also made to Park Service content about major figures
and events in the Civil Rights movement during the 20th Century.

A page about the Niagara Movement, a group founded in 1905 by the
African American civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois, was changed to
remove two references to the struggle for “equality.” For example, a
description of the group’s “renewed sense of resolve in the struggle
for freedom and equality” became simply its “renewed sense of
resolve.”

THE NIAGARA MOVEMENT AT HARPERS FERRY, WEST VIRGINIA

The organization continued until 1911, when almost all of its members
became the backbone of the newly formed National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). There, the men and women of the
Niagara Movement recommitted themselves to the ongoing call for
justice and the struggle for equality.

The sentence in red was deleted from a Niagara Movement webpage after
Trump took office. (NPS.org/Internet Archive)

Shawn Leigh Alexander, a Du Bois biographer and professor at the
University of Kansas, described the alterations as “subtle yet
profound” in suggesting that racism no longer required confrontation
in the United States at the time.

“Although these changes may appear inconsequential to some, they
collectively contribute to the erasure of the historical narrative of
Black struggle for civil, political, and economic rights, which
continues to this day,” he said.

Similar amendments were made to the website of the Little Rock Central
High School National Historic Site in Arkansas, which marks the place
where nine young African American students braved a racist mob and
military resistance from state authorities to integrate a previously
White-only school in 1957.

Students at Little Rock's Central High School shout insults at
Elizabeth Eckford as she calmly walks toward a line of National Guard
troops. (Will Counts/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/AP)

Proclamations that the students “opened doors” for others pursuing
“equality and education around the world” were edited on at least six
pages to remove the word “equality.”

One of the surviving members of the Little Rock Nine, Elizabeth
Eckford, told The Post that the edits masked the fact that the group
had explicitly fought for equality of opportunity.

“They’re trying to rewrite history,” Eckford said. “We can never have
true racial reconciliation until we honestly acknowledge our painful
but shared past.”

Lucy Naland contributed to this report.