The Nationwide Park Service is drawing criticism for quietly rewriting historical past below Donald Trump’s administration. Current edits to its web site concerning the Underground Railroad have erased key references to Harriet Tubman and diluted the brutal reality about slavery in America. Learn extra inside.
As reported by The Washington Put up and highlighted in Phil Lewis’ What I’m Studying Substack, Trump’s administration is making a valiant effort to vary historical past proper earlier than our eyes. Beforehand, the Park Service’s “What’s the Underground Railroad” webpage featured a robust picture of Harriet Tubman and a quote the place she described herself as a “conductor” on the freedom-seeking community. That’s now gone.
The newly up to date web site as an alternative showcases U.S. Postal Service stamps of abolitionists and emphasizes “Black/White cooperation,” stripping away the cruel realities Tubman and different Black freedom fighters truly confronted.
Much more alarming is the shift in language. The unique webpage explicitly mentioned enslaved African Individuals escaping bondage and referenced the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The revised model now describes the Underground Railroad as “one of the crucial vital expressions of the American civil rights motion” that “bridged the divides of race,” glossing over the violent, racialized terror that made the Underground Railroad obligatory within the first place.
These edits are a part of a wider development. The Washington Put up additionally discovered softened language and historic omissions throughout different Park Service websites. Descriptions of “enslaved African Individuals” have been modified to “enslaved employees.” A web page about Benjamin Franklin’s relationship to slavery was quietly eliminated. Mentions of “systemic racism and historic bias” in Black Revolutionary Battle soldier accounts vanished. References to Thomas Stone’s standing as a slaveowner? Gone.
Historians are sounding the alarm. “The location has been diminished in worth by its brevity,” stated Fergus Bordewich, writer of Sure for Canaan. “These modifications are each offensive and absurd.”
This sanitized rebranding follows Trump’s government order to wash any “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from federal establishments, together with the Smithsonian. He particularly focused the Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition. Simply weeks in the past, army historical past pages about Jackie Robinson, the Tuskegee Airmen, and Ladies Airforce Service Pilots have been faraway from a Protection Division web site below the identical anti-DEI mandate. It was later restored solely after public backlash.
The erasure of Tubman’s legacy is not only a couple of web site replace, but it surely’s a warning signal. Historical past is being rewritten in real-time, and the reality is getting whitewashed. Remark your ideas on these modifications under, and remember to help the efforts of writers who guarantee Black tales aren’t being erased.
The Nationwide Park Service Whitewashes Black Historical past Underneath Trump Admin
was initially revealed on
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