{"id":103719,"date":"2026-02-03T09:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T09:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/103719\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T09:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T09:32:10","slug":"judge-orders-trump-administration-to-safely-store-slavery-exhibits-removed-from-philadelphia-historical-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/103719\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge orders Trump administration to safely store slavery exhibits removed from Philadelphia historical site"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal judge<\/a> ordered the Trump administration to safely store all of the slavery exhibits that were removed from the President’s House<\/a> in Philadelphia at the end of January as the city’s lawsuit against the government continues. The order comes after an injunction hearing Friday.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the judge inspected the slavery exhibits, along with representatives from the Trump administration and the City of Philadelphia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Judge Cynthia M. Rufe, the court inspected the 34 panels. They haven’t been destroyed, but certain panels “exhibited damage.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rufe also issued an order preventing any further removals or changes to the President’s House until further notice.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know what I saw but I did not see anything that concerned me about the condition, because there are some marks, but I can’t portray where they are from and I do not believe that they’re in worsening condition now,” Rufe said after inspecting the displays. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Michael Coard, one of the founding members of Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, which was one of the groups involved in the original creation of the President’s House exhibit in the early 2000s, also joined Rufe for Monday’s inspection.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I can’t in all candor say there was physical damage but there were scrapes, there were scratches, there were dents. There were marks, there was bowing of the metallic items,” Coard said.<\/p>\n

Rufe has now given the city until Friday to file an amended complaint, and the federal government will have a week after that to respond. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The slavery exhibits are currently being held by National Parks Service at the National Constitution Center, but the nonprofit said in a statement that it “does not own, store, manage, curate, or control these exhibits and has no role in decisions related to the President’s House site.”<\/p>\n

“Any National Park Service storage space adjacent to the Center is operated solely by the National Park Service and entirely independent of the National Constitution Center,” the nonprofit added. “The Center does not oversee that space, and Center staff have no knowledge of what materials may be stored there.”<\/p>\n

The slavery exhibits were removed from the President’s House by the National Park Service under an executive order by President Trump called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

The President’s House at 6th and Market streets was once the home of former Presidents George Washington and John Adams. The slavery exhibits were a collaborative effort and detail the lives of nine people enslaved at the home while Washington lived there as president.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The city filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Trump administration to have the exhibits put back after the removal.<\/p>\n

According to Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker, the city and NPS had an agreement that required the city’s approval if any changes were made to the President’s House. The city said in the lawsuit that NPS and the Interior Department “did not engage with the city and do not have the city’s approval to make unilateral changes to the President’s House exhibit.”<\/p>\n

The removal of the slavery exhibits has been met with criticism from elected officials and protesters demanding them to be put back<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro filed a brief last week<\/a> to support the city’s lawsuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Donald Trump will take any opportunity to rewrite and whitewash our history \u2014 but he picked the wrong city and the wrong Commonwealth,” Shapiro said in a statement last week.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

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