Outraged critics accused President Donald Trump of “whitewashing history” on Friday after the National Park Service removed an exhibit on slavery at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park in response to his executive order “restoring truth and sanity to American history” on display at the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks.
Empty bolt holes and shadows are all that remains on the brick walls where explanatory panels were displayed at the President’s House Site, where George and Martha Washington lived with the people they owned as property during the years when Philadelphia was the nation’s capital. One woman cried silently at their absence. Someone left a bouquet of flowers. A hand-lettered sign said “Slavery was real.”
Crews on Thursday removed the exhibit which included the names and other biographical details about the nine people enslaved by the Washingtons at the presidential mansion. Their names remain engraved on a cement wall at the entrance.
Seeking to stop the display’s permanent removal, the city of Philadelphia on Thursday sued Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and acting National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron.
The panels came down because Trump’s order requires federal agencies to review interpretive materials to “ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values,” an Interior Department statement said. It called the city’s lawsuit frivolous, aimed at “demeaning our brave Founding Fathers who set the brilliant road map for the greatest country in the world.”
The department did not answer questions about what will replace the exhibits that were removed.
The City of Philadelphia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The people enslaved at the mansion included Oney Judge, who famously ran away and remained free despite Washington’s attempts to return her to bondage. Slavery is central to the site’s story, Philadelphia’s lawsuit argues, adding that the terms of the city’s management partnership with the federal government gives the city equal say over any design changes.
Critics condemned the removals as confirmation that the Trump administration seeks to erase unflattering aspects of American history.
“Their shameful desecration of this exhibit raises broader, disturbing questions about this administration’s continued abuse of power and commitment to whitewashing history,” said Rep. Dwight Evans, a Pennsylvania Democrat.
Taking pride in American independence shouldn’t mean hiding its mistakes, said Ed Stierli, senior mid-Atlantic regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association, which works to protect national parks. These historic sites should help Americans grapple with the difficult truths and contradictions in how we frame history, he said, and removing the exhibit is an insult to the memory of the enslaved people who lived there.
“It reverses years of collaborative work by the National Park Service, City of Philadelphia, and community members, and sets a dangerous precedent of prioritizing nostalgia over the truth,” Stieri said.
“It shows that the United States is still unwilling to reckon with the horrors of its past and would rather prefer to sanitize the history that it has and try to present a convenient lie,” said Timothy Welbeck, director of the Center for Anti-Racism at Temple University.
The order, which Trump signed last March, accused the Biden administration of advancing a “corrosive ideology” at the nation’s historic sites.
“At Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — where our Nation declared that all men are created equal — the prior administration sponsored training by an organization that advocates dismantling ‘Western foundations’ and ‘interrogating institutional racism’ and pressured National Historical Park rangers that their racial identity should dictate how they convey history to visiting Americans because America is purportedly racist,” the order states.
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Dorany Pineda contributed to this story from Los Angeles.
