National Park Service restores original Harriet Tubman, Underground Railroad webpage

The National Park Service has reversed edits and restored content to its webpage about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in the wake of news reports and public backlash over the changes.

The National Park Service has reversed edits and restored content to its webpage about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in the wake of news reports and public backlash over the changes.

“Changes to the Underground Railroad page on the National Park Service’s website were made without approval from NPS leadership nor Department leadership,” NPS spokeswoman Rachel Pawlitz said late Monday in an email. “The webpage was immediately restored to its original content.”

She did not say who ordered the changes or for what reason. The changes — first reported by The Washington Post — included removing Tubman’s picture from the top of the page and making multiple edits to the text. A side-by-side analysis of the pages, using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, revealed changes that removed references to slavery and changed descriptions about the issue and its brutal realities.

For example, the original opening sentence referenced the railroad’s core role in “the resistance to enslavement through escape and flight.” The edited version called the railroad “one of the most significant expressions of the American civil rights movement” and described how it “bridged the divides of race, religion, sectional differences, and nationality.”

The issue comes amid sweeping government changes to comply with President Donald Trump’s campaign against so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the federal government. In some cases, officials have scrambled to remove and then restore online content as changes came to light.