The U.S. National Park Service removed a quote and an image of Harriet Tubman from a webpage about the Underground Railroad network following several changes to government websites as the Trump administration continues its effort to purge diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) content from federal agencies.
The website, titled “What is the Underground Railroad?,” previously began with a picture and a quote from Tubman, who escaped slavery and later helped free dozens of others.
According to the Wayback Machine internet archive, the website previously featured a quote from Tubman, which said, “I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”
The webpage now features commemorative postal stamps of various civil rights leaders, including Tubman, with the text “Black/White Cooperation,” and no longer includes references to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. (These changes were first noticed and documented by The Washington Post.)
In the previous version of the website, the first sentences described the Underground Railroad as “the resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, through the end of the Civil War.” It also said that it “refers to the efforts of enslaved African Americans to gain their freedom by escaping bondage.”
A comparison of the National Park Service Underground Railroad webpage.
Screengrab: Wayback Machine
The new introduction no longer mentions slavery and reads, “The Underground Railroad—flourished from the end of the 18th century to the end of the Civil War, was one of the most significant expressions of the American civil rights movement during its evolution over more than three centuries.”
“The Underground Railroad bridged the divides of race, religion, sectional differences, and nationality; spanned State lines and international borders; and joined the American ideals of liberty and freedom expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the extraordinary actions of ordinary men and women working in common purpose to free a people,” the page reads.
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There is a separate page dedicated to Tubman, who helped Black people to escape slavery in the South via the Underground Railroad in the 1800s. It features her photo and biography, as well as some quick facts about her.
The Underground Railroad’s page is the latest to undergo changes as the Trump administration continues to whittle away at DEI content and programs.
This week, books on the Holocaust, histories of feminism, civil rights and racism, and Maya Angelou’s famous autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, were among the nearly 400 volumes removed from the U.S. Naval Academy’s library after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office ordered the school to get rid of ones that promote DEI.
On April 4, the navy provided the list of 381 books that have been taken out of its library, marking another move from Trump’s administration to remove DEI content from federal agencies, including policies, programs, online and social media postings and curriculum at schools.
In addition to Angelou’s award-winning book, the list includes Memorializing the Holocaust, which deals with Holocaust memorials; Half American, about African Americans in the Second World War; A Respectable Woman, about the public roles of Black women in 19th-century New York; and Pursuing Trayvon Martin, about the 2012 shooting of the Black 17-year-old in Florida that raised questions about racial profiling.
Trump administration removes ‘politically-charged’ words relating to DEI from government sites
Other books deal with subjects that have been targeted by the Trump administration, including gender identity, sexuality and transgender issues. A wide array of books on race and gender were targeted, dealing with such topics as Black women poets, entertainers who wore blackface and the treatment of women in Islamic countries.
Also on the list were historical books on racism, the Ku Klux Klan and the treatment of women, gender and race in art and literature.
In a statement, the navy told The Associated Press that officials went through the Nimitz Library catalog, using keyword searches to identify books that required further review. About 900 books were identified in that search.
“Departmental officials then closely examined the preliminary list to determine which books required removal,” said Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, navy spokesperson. “Nearly 400 books were removed from Nimitz Library to comply with directives outlined in Executive Orders issued by the President.”
— With files from The Associated Press