National Archives says it was wrong to alter images

Officials at the National Archives on Saturday said they had removed from display an altered photo from the 2017 Women’s March in which signs held by marchers critical of President Trump had been blurred.

In tweets on Saturday, the museum apologized and said: “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,” one of the tweets said.

“This photo is not an archival record held by the @usnatarchives, but one we licensed to use as a promotional graphic,” it said in another tweet. “Nonetheless, we were wrong to alter the image.”

The altered 49-by-69-inch photograph was part of a display that showed the 2017 march from one perspective and, viewed from another angle, shifted to show a 1913 black-and-white image of a women’s suffrage march also on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The display linked momentous demonstrations for women’s rights more than a century apart on the same stretch of pavement.