If one were to turn the opening pages of any history book on Chester County or perhaps come across a historical marker along its many scenic roads, they would very likely read about the courageous sojourn of Harriet Tubman.

Tubman and her image and her story and her legacy are everywhere among us – at the Kennett Heritage Center in Kennett Square and at lectures given by the Kennett Underground Railroad Center. She is forever etched in the fabric of our history in praise and reflection of her remarkable accomplishments in rescuing slaves and ushering them to freedom along the Underground Railroad, the journeys of which slice directly through the hamlets and crevices and neighborhoods where we now live.

Recently, it came to the attention of the National Park Service that a website story devoted to Tubman’s achievements, her quotations and her image had been mysteriously wiped off of the website during February – Black History Month. Instead, without approval from the National Park Service, the page was replaced by images of postage stamps that highlighted “Black/White Cooperation,” and new text that emphasized that the Underground Railroad “bridged the divides of race.”

Any mention of slavery was removed.

While the acknowledgement of Tubman has been restored to the website, it is merely one incident in a series of stunts orchestrated by the Trump administration’s mission to wipe away any traces of diversity, equity and inclusion in the federal government. On the Arlington National Cemetery’s website, the graves of Black – and female – service members have vanished or been obscured. A Defense Department page dedicated to the military service of Jackie Robinson – the first African American player in baseball’s Major Leagues and an early pioneer in the fight for civil rights – disappeared and then reappeared. Another tribute by the Defense Department – a biography of Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers, an African American who achieved the rank of general and received the Medal of Honor - disappeared but was restored. 

The Trump administration also issued “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” an executive order claiming that the Smithsonian Museum has become under “the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology,” specifically pointing to the National Museum of African American History and Culture that was approved by President Obama in 2016. 

And so it goes, on and on: the Black Lives Matter mural in Washington, D.C. has been painted over; the stories of the Tuskegee Airmen have been removed from federal websites.  Let us make no mistake here: this is a concocted attempt to scrub away any perceived tarnish from American history, in the same manner of a street cleaner who tosses buckets of bleach onto sidewalks to remove unsightly graffiti.

What this administration fails to understand and respect is that the legend of Harriet Tubman – like Jackie Robinson and Calvin Rogers - is the graffiti of our nation’s highest ideals, our heroism, our dignity, and our permanence, and no amount of small-minded attempts to dissolve the African American story from our nation’s memory will ever be strong enough to do so. 

There is a mural, 87 feet wide by 17 feet in height, that stands beside the Kennett Library on South Willow Street in Kennett Square. Created by community mural artist Al Moretti and dedicated last August, the mural is a tribute to Chester County as a symbol of history and progress: the mushroom industry, Longwood Gardens, the Lenape Indian legacy, equestrian life, the Latino culture and author Bayard Taylor. Most prominently featured in the mural is Tubman, whose eyes seem to reflect a sense of resilience, guts, temerity and defiance, as if she is looking directly into the faces of those whose intentions are to scrub away her magnitude and saying, Try to remove me. Go ahead, I dare you.