{"id":118909,"date":"2026-02-20T08:54:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T08:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/118909\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T08:54:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T08:54:20","slug":"slavery-exhibit-reinstalled-at-presidents-house-in-old-city-nbc10-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/118909\/","title":{"rendered":"Slavery exhibit reinstalled at President\u2019s House in Old City \u2013 NBC10 Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a judge ordered the Trump administration to restore and reinstall an exhibit on the history of slavery<\/a> at the President’s House in Philly’s Old City neighborhood by Friday, workers arrived at the site on Thursday morning and reinstalled some of the exhibit.<\/p>\n

As workers reinstalled the panels, NBC10’s Lili Zheng<\/a> confirmed the exhibit that was being restored was the original exhibit that had been removed last month at 6th and Market streets.<\/p>\n

“Today we celebrate the return of our history at this important site,” Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said. “We are thankful for all the supporters across the city to get us to this point. We know that this is not the end of the legal road. We will handle all legal challenges that arise with the same rigor and gravity as we have done thus far.”<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe set the deadline for Friday, Feb. 20, 2026, at 5 p.m. to have the exhibit at the President’s House restored and reinstalled after she issued a scathing ruling<\/a> likening the removal of the original displays to the governmental oppression discussed in George Orwell’s novel “1984.”<\/p>\n

“As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell\u2019s ‘1984’ now existed, with its motto, ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims \u2014 to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts,” Rufe wrote in her ruling. “It does not.”<\/p>\n

In her ruling, Rufe ordered the exhibit’s removal be undone and all “exhibits, panels, artwork, or other items” from the President’s House site be restored to the status it was in as of Jan. 21, 2026.<\/p>\n

The exhibit was removed on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. Acting on orders from the National Parks Service,\u00a0workers descended on the President’s House<\/a>\u00a0at Independence National Historical Park \u2014 a place where Presidents George Washington and John Adams\u00a0lived and conducted their executive branch business<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and removed an exhibit that examined the history of slavery at the site.<\/p>\n

Mayor Parker\u00a0has said that, since 2006, there has been a cooperative agreement<\/a>\u00a0between the city and the federal government that calls for officials to meet and confer before any changes could be made to existing exhibits.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration had appealed the judge’s initial ruling. <\/p>\n

National Park Service workers have until 5 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 20 to put the remainder of the panels up. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a judge ordered the Trump administration to restore and reinstall an exhibit on the history of slavery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[13272,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-118909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-old-city","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118909","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=118909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}