Removed Harriet Tubman info from website was 'done without approval,' park service says
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Who Was? Harriet Tubman
Learn more about the life of Harriet Tubman.
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Information about Harriet Tubman has been restored to a National Park Service website about the Underground Railroad.
The National Park Service said Monday that a portrait and a quote from Tubman had been removed 'without approval.'
As the internet archive Wayback Machine shows, the website "What is the Underground Railroad" in February began with a picture and a quote from Tubman, the formerly enslaved woman who helped shepherd others to freedom in the North.
But by the end of February, the website heading showed a collection of stamps honoring those who helped people escape slavery, including Tubman among others. The website change was first reported in a Washington Post investigation.
In a statement sent to USA TODAY on Monday, the National Park Service said the change has now been undone.
'Changes to the Underground Railroad page on the National Park Service's website were made without approval from NPS leadership nor Department leadership. The webpage was immediately restored to its original content,' a spokesperson said.
More: Jackie Robinson article removed from Department of Defense website has been restored
The NPS website was among several that were changed in the face of President Donald Trump's efforts to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the federal government.
NPS also edited out "transgender" from its website for the Stonewall National Monument, a small park dedicated to an LGBTQ+ uprising where trans activists were key players. Two Department of Defense websites dedicated to Black veterans, including baseball star Jackie Robinson and Medal of Honor recipient Army Maj. Gen. Charles Gavin Rogers were also temporarily taken offline before being restored.
Harriet Tubman picture had been removed, page's intro rewritten
Before the change was undone, the website no longer featured a quote from Tubman: "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."
A comparative look on the Wayback Machine shows that the description of the Underground Railroad was pared down, especially in the introduction.
Originally, and currently, the introduction reads:
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. Wherever slavery existed, there were efforts to escape. At first to maroon communities in remote or rugged terrain on the edge of settled areas and eventually across state and international borders. These acts of self-emancipation labeled slaves as "fugitives," "escapees," or "runaways," but in retrospect "freedom seeker " is a more accurate description. Many freedom seekers began their journey unaided and many completed their self-emancipation without assistance, but each subsequent decade in which slavery was legal in the United States, there was an increase in active efforts to assist escape.
That introduction had been replaced with the following, which notably didn't mention slavery:
The Underground Railroad – flourished from the end of the 18th century to the end of the Civil War, was one of the most significant expressions of the American civil rights movement during its evolution over more than three centuries.The Underground Railroad bridged the divides of race, religion, sectional differences, and nationality; spanned State lines and international borders; and joined the American ideals of liberty and freedom expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the extraordinary actions of ordinary men and women working in common purpose to free a people.
Contributing: Fernando Cervantes.
Kinsey Crowley is a trending news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at kcrowley@gannett.com. Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @kinseycrowley.bsky.social.
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