The new administration has made a lot of changes in how the National Park Service (NPS), the military, and other agencies present American history. Today’s Washington Post has a new development on how the NPS is presenting the history of the Underground Railroad. Back when I was a kid, NPS sites barely mentioned the Underground Railroad but by the 1980s there were a lot of sites being identified as key features of the escape route from slavery. In the 21st Century the NPS service has developed key sites of the Railroad and created explanatory materials on it. I have visited Harriet Tubman’s how which was recently acquired by the NPS as well as her nearby church. These sites include stories of Tubman’s role as a Conductor on the Underground Railroad. Here is what the Washington Post says about the changes in how the NPS presents the Underground Railroad:
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 It has been replaced by a line that makes no mention of slavery and that describes the Underground Railroad as “one of the most significant expressions of the American civil rights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.
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.
A reference to other “enslaved African Americans” in that region was changed to “enslaved workers.”
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.
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.”
…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.
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.”
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.
