After Outcry, National Park Service Restores Underground Railroad Page Featuring Harriet Tubman
After widespread public backlash, the National Park Service (NPS) has reinstated a webpage dedicated to the Underground Railroad that prominently features freedom fighter Harriet Tubman. The restoration comes after historians, educators, and everyday citizens expressed outrage over the page's quiet removal from the NPS site, calling the decision an alarming act of historical erasure.
The original page, which had been live for over a decade, offered in-depth information about Tubman’s pivotal role in helping enslaved Black Americans escape to freedom. It is also linked to educational resources, National Park sites related to the Underground Railroad, and digital archives documenting the legacy of resistance.
Its removal earlier this year—without any formal announcement or replacement—sparked swift criticism, particularly from Black scholars and cultural preservationists.
The timing raised eyebrows. Over the past few years, several states have introduced legislation limiting how race, slavery, and civil rights history can be taught in schools. At the same time, cultural institutions have come under pressure to depoliticize or de-emphasize Black narratives. Critics say the NPS’s removal of the page fits that troubling trend.
“Tubman’s reduced presence on the Underground Railroad page “is both offensive and absurd,” Fergus Bordewich, a historian and the author of a book about the Underground Railroad, said to CNN in an interview. He continued, saying the website “diminished in value by its brevity.”
“To oversimplify history is to distort it,” Bordewich added. “Americans are not infants: they can handle complex and challenging historical narratives. They do not need to be protected from the truth.”
In response, the NPS re-uploaded the page in late March and issued a brief statement acknowledging public concern.
“The National Park Service recognizes Harriet 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,” NPS’s statement reads.
