Harriet Tubman's Return!

After public backlash and media attention, the National Park Service reversed its decision to remove Harriet Tubman's image and quote from its Underground Railroad webpage in February. Digital archiving tools revealed the changes, which historians condemned as "offensive and absurd" attempts to minimize Tubman's historical contributions.

Chapters

• 0:00 Breaking Update on Tubman Story
• 0:34 NPS Claims "Unauthorized" Website Changes
• 1:32 Public Backlash Forces Website Restoration
• 3:17 Reporter's Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

All right, guys, we have an update on the story that I just reported about Harriet Tubman being removed from the National Parks website, park Services website. They just returned it back. They just went ahead and reversed everything that they did, and now Harriet Tubman's image, as well as her famous quote, is back on their website. So how to give credit where it's due? I personally think they got caught and called out, so they just had to go ahead and reverse it. So now what they're saying is the agency, uh, is that this was done without approval from top leadership, right? So this thing was removed, um, and nobody knew about it, like it was like something that just happened. So, um, the the image originally contained like a large picture of, uh, harry tubman, as well as her quote about being a conductor in the underground railroad and the contribution or experiences, and for some odd reason, it just all just disappeared, right, but it was a screen grab that was made by a website called the Way Back Machine that showed the difference between the updated version without Harriet Tubman on it and the older version that had everything on it, and this is what kind of prompted this story. So the Washington Post first reported on this on Sunday and it prompted backlash from historians and educators. And when asked about the restoration of Tubman's image and quote to the page, the National Park Service's spokesperson told cnn changes to the underground railroad page on the national park services website were made without approval from mps, leadership nor department leadership. The web page was immediately restored to its original content. The updated version, without tubman's quote or image, had been live since at least was it like last, at least by february 21st it was. And this is what the uh wayback machine was showing uh.

Speaker 1: 2:12

The recent reduction of tubman's presence on the web page is coming after several other prominent changes to the government website. As the administration trump's administration enacted a sweeping anti-DEI agenda, incurred criticism from some who said the changes minimized Tubman's crucial contributions to the Underground Railroad. The abolitionist is credited with helping free scores of enslaved people during the Civil War period. One historian now forgive me if I messed up this last name, this is Fergus Fergus Bordwich had called the edits both offensive and absurd. Before the page was reverted Monday afternoon, the NPS spokesperson defended the changes, telling CNN the idea that a couple web edits somehow invalidated the National Park Service's commitment to telling complex and challenging historical narratives is completely false. The spokesperson highlighted the two National Historical Parks named for Tubman as the Underground Railroad's best known conductor and we celebrate her as a deeply spiritual woman who lived her ideals and dedicated her life to freedom. And, like I said, I think they just got caught and called out on it. This has been done since mid-February and nobody knew about it is beyond me. They said there is a separate National Park Service page dedicated to Tubman, who was born into slavery, as we know, in Maryland. Before fleeing to Philadelphia, she returned to Maryland over a dozen times to help free other slaves, guiding them through the Underground Railroad, a secret network of routes and safe houses.

Speaker 1: 3:58

The park services web page on tubman does not seem, does not seem to have been changed since january 28th of this year. So again, guys, it's an update. Um, I think that when it became a a big issue was before it became a big issue, when it was about to be big, because it's just happened yesterday and they changed it today. So now, you see, you know that this is pretty much something that they might have did and thought we can just sneak it in, just like I said in the previous video, we can just sneak this in and nobody will notice it, but applaud those that did, those at the wayback machine, um website, who did the comparison of the two websites both now and then from january to february, to show you how things were different, and making that public so that everybody can see it and make noise about it.

Speaker 1: 4:57

Once again, guys, that was just a quick turnaround. I'm just going to say, like you know, I really applaud them for actually putting that out there. And again, please get that library up. This stuff happens. Nobody said anything. This would have just kept rocking. So again it's Carl Girard from the Only One mic podcast. Please hit those like share subscribes. Let's get the subs up. If you like this content, all right, peace.