The outcry against the National Park Service over its altering of the history of the Underground Railroad on its website has succeeded, at least for now. The original website had said that the Underground Railroad was a form of resistance to slavery. The site said that “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.” That language was eliminated and instead the new text focused on “Black/White cooperation…bridged the divides of race…” Now the site has restored the original language.
On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that the new racial “cooperation” language replaced the earlier, and more realistic, telling of the story, as well as the emphasis on Harriet Tubman. There was a broad outcry against this altering of history which was made even louder when the Washington Post reported:
“…two Park Service employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution, who said that political appointees at the Interior Department — which oversees the National Park Service — had directed senior career officials to identify webpages that might need to be changed.”
The whitewashing of the history of the Underground Railroad was condemned by historians and African American leaders. In today’s article in the Washington Post this was what was said:
“Jill Hasday, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Law School who recently wrote a book on the importance of remembering women’s struggle for equality, said that commemorations and celebrations of prominent women figures has been “fought over for more than a century.”
“Historical memory shapes present thought and future action,” she said. “In other words, commemorations are so contested because they’re only partially about the past. They’re really about the present and the future.”
“Harriet Tubman is one of the most outstanding Americans who ever lived,” she added. “The idea that we would want to tell a story of America that doesn’t feature her front and center makes no sense to me.”
Derek W. Black, a professor of law at the University of South Carolina, said those webpages are important because they help build the average American’s “most basic understanding of the path our country has traveled.”
“They trust the NPS to offer an accurate and objective account, but when the NPS abuses that trust, it builds a false sense of our national identity that makes it difficult to deal with current realities,” he wrote in an email.”
So, in just three days the outcry overwhelmed the racism.
1 thought on “Outcry Against National Park for Altering the History of the Underground Railroad Succeeds!”