{"id":115889,"date":"2026-02-17T08:18:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T08:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/115889\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T08:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T08:18:18","slug":"philadelphia-slavery-exhibit-trump-admin-must-restore-presidents-house-panels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/115889\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia slavery exhibit: Trump admin must restore President\u2019s House panels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                                                                                                                                                                                                                        When will the President\u2019s House slavery exhibit be restored?<\/p>\n<p>Rufe did not set a deadline for the restoration. But Michael Coard, an attorney and founder of <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/presidents-house-philadelphia-slavery-exhibit-reaction\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Avenging the Ancestors Coalition<\/a>, which joined the city of Philadelphia in suing the federal government over the removal, said that\u2019s likely because she expects the Trump administration to appeal the decision.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis judge, a Republican, by the way, looked at the law, looked at the facts, and did the right thing,\u201d Coard said. \u201cIt\u2019s a great day in Philadelphia, it\u2019s a great day in Pennsylvania, it\u2019s a great day in America.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>Coard had been hosting the annual Presidents Day event at the site when he learned of the decision. He said the news made him \u201cecstatic.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe always point out that George Washington and 11 other presidents enslaved Black people,\u201d Coard said. \u201cThis happened on Presidents Day. To me, it\u2019s like the judicial equivalent of the Revolutionary War where the Founding Fathers took up arms against a dictatorial government in Britain. Well, this judge took up a pen against a dictatorial government here in 2026.\u201d\n  <\/p>\n<p>Coard said the 40-page decision is \u201cfactually and legally impressive.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>The city of <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-presidents-house-slavery-exhibit-removal\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Philadelphia sued to restore the exhibit<\/a>, citing contractual agreements made through congressional authority. Rufe wrote that the National Park Service cannot make changes to exhibits without agreement from the city of Philadelphia. Congress \u201climited the authority of the Department of the Interior and NPS to unilaterally alter or control Independence National Historic Park. The agencies do not have the authority to flout that Congressional directive.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>The National Park Service did not immediately respond to WHYY News\u2019 request for comment.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When will the President\u2019s House slavery exhibit be restored? Rufe did not set a deadline for the restoration.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,47714,724],"class_list":["post-115889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-presidents-day","tag-trump-impact"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}