National Archives Apologizes for Alteration of 2017 Women’s March Image
UPDATE 4 (January 22, 2020)
UPDATE 3 (January 22, 2020)
AP Report: “ACLU Pressing Nat’l Archives on Censored Women’s March Photo” ||| Full Text of ACLU Statement and FOIA Filing
UPDATE 2 (January 21, 2020) ALA Responds to National Archive Efforts to Alter Materials
UPDATE National Archives (NARA) Apologizes for Alteration of 2017 Women’s March Image Removes Display
Full Text of Statement
We made a mistake.
As the National Archives of the United States, we are and have always been completely committed to preserving our archival holdings, without alteration.
In an elevator lobby promotional display for our current exhibit on the 19th Amendment, we obscured some words on protest signs in a photo of the 2017 Women’s March. This photo is not an archival record held by the National Archives, but one we licensed to use as a promotional graphic. Nonetheless, we were wrong to alter the image.
We have removed the current display and will replace it as soon as possible with one that uses the unaltered image.
We apologize, and will immediately start a thorough review of our exhibit policies and procedures so that this does not happen again.
–End Update–
From The Washington Post
Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Associations and Organizations, News
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.
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