National Park Service workers were seen reinstalling the panels after a judge ruled on Monday for them to be restored.<\/p>\n
A slavery exhibit in Philadelphia is being restored after a judge ruled on Monday against the Trump administration\u2019s removal of the installation.<\/p>\n
According to Fox 29 Philadelphia<\/a>, National Park Service workers were seen on Thursday (Feb. 19) reinstalling 30 panels about slavery on the historic President\u2019s House located at Independence National Historical Park in the City Center neighborhood. The building was once home to the first president of the United States, George Washington, and the second president, John Adams.<\/p>\n The City of Philadelphia sued the Trump administration after the National Park Service was seen taking down the panels about slavery in January<\/a>, under a directive ordered by the president that said its purpose was \u201crestoring truth and sanity to American history.\u201d Some of the displays removed were entitled, \u201cFreedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,\u201d \u201cLife Under Slavery,\u201d and \u201cThe Dirty Business of Slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n The order coming from the federal policy was immediately met with protests from residents, local organizations like the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, and city leadership.<\/p>\n On Monday (Feb. 16), Judge Cynthia M. Rufe ordered Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, the Department of the Interior, National Park Service Acting Director Jessica Bowron, and the National Park Service to reinstate the exhibits<\/a>, and that any changes made going forward must be accompanied by a \u201cmutual written agreement\u201d with the city of Philadelphia.<\/p>\n In her 40-page decison, Rufe compared the federal action to Big Brother in George Orwell\u2019s dystopian novel \u201c1984,\u201d and said, \u201cAs if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell\u2019s 1984 now existed, with its motto \u2018Ignorance is Strength,\u2019 this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims\u2014to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. It does not.\u201d<\/p>\n Rufe also ordered for the panels to be reinstalled by Friday, February 20, at 5 p.m. local time.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the President\u2019s House is left dismembered throughout this dispute, so too is the history it recounts,\u201d Rufe wrote in the opinion.<\/p>\n