Rita Daniels learned at 9 that is the great -grandson of the famous abolitionist Harriet Tubman, who led innumerable Africans enslaved to freedom through the underground railroad. It was a moment that changed how he saw herself and American history for the rest of her life.
Then, when Daniels, now 70 years old, learned in recent days that the National Parks Service drastically altered its website in Tocman and the underground railroad in February, was devastated.
“I broke me when I saw the news clip flashing my phone,” said Daniels, who was recently co -author of a book about Tubman’s life.
In primary school, Daniels was assigned to write about Tubman, but the books he could access in his school in Auburn, New York, where Tubman was established in 1859 after fleeing slavery in Maryland, described it as “a thief,” Daniels recalled. “He said he stole slaves, that there was a reward in his head, that kind of thing.”
When Daniels told his mother what he found, his mother not only told him that he was not true, but told Daniels that Tocman was his ancestor.
That began a life in which Daniels relied on Tubman’s legacy for force while working to preserve history as author and founder of the Harriet Tubman learning center.
The page had been changed in February, the Washington Post reported, exchanging a large image of Tocman for one of the five postal stamps that celebrate “Black/Black Cooperation.” The description of the underground railroad changed from “the resistance to slavery through escape and flight” to one that minimizes the role of slavery, instead of saying that it was an expression of the “movement of US civil rights” that united “the divisions of the race”.
“I was basically surprised and wounded at the same time,” Daniels said. “Most of my adult life, I wanted to make sure that people know that their history is a critical part of black history, which is American history.”
Daniels said that when he was a child, he felt shocking and empowering to know what came from the bloodline of one of the most important figures in the history of the United States.
“At that age, I did not completely understand the racial war in the country or why they would describe it in that way in the books,” he said. “But I knew that having her as a relative was special.”
She said that Tubman’s tenacity has been a significant influence on her life. When she was tormented for years by a stalker, Daniels sought the strength of her ancestor.
After years of persistent harassment that began when Daniels was 17 years old, the man broke into his house and stabbed her repeatedly, even on her face, sending her to an extension of the hospital.
“I keep my aunt in my mentality when I fall or when I put myself in the mood of not wanting to move on or move on,” Daniels said. “His words were, ‘Keep ahead. You never give up.’ And that is what kept me.
After the NPS website was changed to eliminate Tubman’s words and a brief description of his work that moved dozens of enslaved people from slavery in the south until freedom in the northern states, in addition to the mention of the racist laws that forced the existence of the underground railway, the public protest was rapid and noisy. On Monday, the NPS said in a statement that the page had been eliminated “without approval” of the agency’s main brasss and that the original version was “immediately restored.”
“My question is: why do you want to erase our black history?” Daniels asked. “Why are we a threat to certain Americans? They want to eliminate or ignore very reputed Americans, black American? Why? The answer is racism.”
The change was one of the many governmental websites that had been updated or erased as part of the broad effort of the Trump administration to eliminate what it considers the references to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI. Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in baseball, was also removed from the Army website and then restored, as did Colin Powell and Pearl Harbor, Doris Miller.
The violent reaction about attempts to ignore the history of Tubman and that of the underground railway only underlines how important it is to preserve it, Daniels said.
“This is the type of impact that Harriett Tubman had in many people, not only in me,” he said.
“And they want to erase that?
