For years, a National Park Service
webpage introduced the Underground Railroad with a large photograph of its most famous “conductor,” Harriet Tubman. “The Underground Railroad — the resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, through the end of the Civil War — refers to the efforts of enslaved African Americans to gain their freedom by escaping bondage,” the page began.
Tubman’s photograph is now gone. In its place are images of Postal Service stamps that highlight “Black/White cooperation” in the secret network and that feature Tubman among abolitionists of both races.
The introductory sentence is gone, too. It has been replaced by a line that makes no mention of slavery and that describes the Underground Railroad as “one of the most significant expressions of the American civil rights movement.” The effort “bridged the divides of race,” the page now says.
