The National Parks Service (NPS), under orders to remove diverse, equal and inclusive language from its websites by the Trump regime, has taken a portrait of Harriet Tubman off their website about the Underground Railroad and changed the website’s language to remove the term ‘freedom seekers.’
Tubman, whose real name was Araminta Ross (1822 – 1913) was an activist abolitionist who lived much of her life in New York State, where she is buried. Tubman made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including her family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known collectively as the Underground Railroad.
During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the United States Army. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the movement for women’s suffrage.
Among the material removed from the Underground Railroad page is a leading quote from Tubman, a mural showing the all-Black 54th Massachusetts, and abolitionist images used to promote opposition to slavery. The following paragraph was also removed:
“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.”
Language about organizing, the depredations of slavery and much more has been removed. The website now focused on “American ideals of liberty and freedom” and places outside the United States which also had slavery.
The “Language of Slavery page, which is no longer directly linked by NPS, includes the following message: “Note to readers: The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program is currently revising this webpage in order to reflect accurate and contextual ways to talk about slavery, freedom, and the Underground Railroad. If you have feedback or comments you would like to share, please email network_to_freedom@nps.gov.”
You can see the old pages here, and the new pages here.
The moves come on the heels of removals of Black Medal of honor recipients, and mentions of Queer and Trans people from New York’s Stonewall National Monument and other places, among other changes to white-wash American history.
Tubman was noted for her active opposition to oppressive governments and her personal resiliency, as suggested in her most oft-quoted instructions:
“If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going.”
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Photo: Image of Harriet Tubman removed by the Trump regime, photographed by Harvey Lindsley (Library of Congress).
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