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A federal appeals court will hear arguments today in the closely watched dispute over the future of the slavery exhibit at Philadelphia’s President’s House Site on Independence Mall. It is the latest development in a legal battle that has drawn national attention and raised broader questions about how American history is presented on public land.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit will consider the Trump administration’s appeal of a federal judge’s order requiring the National Park Service to restore slavery-related interpretive panels that were removed from the historic site earlier this year.
The fight for the exhibit has become a bipartisan effort with U.S. Sen. David McCormick, R-Pa., joining the call for the site’s restoration. During a conference call with the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, or ATAC, regional director Nate Gerace said the senator was closely watching how the story unfolds.
“Our history is our history and what makes America exceptional is our willingness to confront our history honestly, and learn from both the triumphs and the failures and keep working toward a more perfect union,” Gerace said. “We’ve taken a consistent position on similar issues, such as efforts to rename military bases like Fort Bragg or remove statues like those of William Penn and Christopher Columbus.”
Famed local attorney George Bochetto, who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2022 as a Republican, was also on the call. Bochetto came to prominence after successfully defending the Columbus statue at Marconi Plaza after the city tried to take it down in 2021.
“Some of us Republicans have faced the struggle and have faced the difficulties and we understand what it is to struggle and to fight,” Bochetto told the people on the call, adding he was “happy to be aligned” with Michael Coard, a co-founder of ATAC. “I don’t always agree with him, but I always agree that he does a magnificent job for the cause.”