Harriet Tubman removed from the National Park Service’s webpage for the ‘Underground Railroad’
In 2025, it feels like history is being rewritten in real time—and not quietly. Recently, the National Park Service removed Harriet Tubman’s photo and quote from its official “Underground Railroad” webpage, marking the latest example of the federal government quietly revising public-facing information under President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI mandate.
Previously, the webpage prominently featured Tubman—arguably the most well-known figure associated with the “Underground Railroad”—alongside her famous quote:
“I was the conductor of the ‘Underground Railroad’ for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say — I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.”
That content has since been scrubbed. In its place is a collage of US Postal Service Underground Railroad commemorative stamps featuring abolitionists with words like “Black/White cooperation.”
The changes go beyond images. Language referencing “enslaved people” and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 has been removed. The site’s description of the Underground Railroad has also been altered. A January 2025 version of the page retrieved through the Wayback Machine described the movement as “resistance to enslavement through escape and flight.”
Now, the current version calls it one of the “most significant expressions of the American civil rights movement,” emphasizing unity and patriotism over the realities of slavery.
Fergus Bordewich, a historian and author of a book on the “Underground Railroad,” criticized the edits in an interview with CNN.
“To oversimplify history is to distort it,” he said. “Americans are not infants: they can handle complex and challenging historical narratives.”
The edits come after Trump signed an executive order in January targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across federal agencies. Since then, departments, including the National Park Service and the Pentagon, have reportedly instructed staff to review and revise online content that might conflict with the administration’s new policies.
One NPS employee, speaking anonymously to The Washington Post, said many edits were made in a “frenzy of fear.”
“You draw as broad a brush as possible,” the employee said, “because the consequences of missing something are a lot more severe than the consequences of doing too much.”
These website changes follow a broader effort by the Trump administration to influence how American history is taught, presented, and preserved. Last month, the Trump administration issued new orders targeting the Smithsonian Institution, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The executive order targets funding for programs the administration believes push “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology.”
Trump says his executive orders are meant to stop efforts to rewrite American history — but in reality, they look more like an attempt to rewrite and erase Black history altogether.
