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<\/p>\nBy TASSANEE VEJPONGSA and GRAHAM LEE BREWER, Associated Press<\/p>\n
PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Outraged critics accused President Donald Trump of \u201cwhitewashing history\u201d on Friday after the National Park Service removed an exhibit on slavery at Philadelphia\u2019s Independence National Historical Park in response to his executive order \u201crestoring truth and sanity to American history\u201d at the nation\u2019s museums, parks and landmarks.<\/p>\n
Empty bolt holes and shadows are all that remains on the brick walls where explanatory panels were displayed at the President\u2019s House Site, where George and Martha Washington lived with the people they owned as property when Philadelphia was the nation\u2019s capital. One woman cried silently at their absence. Someone left a bouquet of flowers. A hand-lettered sign said \u201cSlavery was real.\u201d<\/p>\n
Workers on Thursday removed the exhibit, which included biographical details about the nine people enslaved by the Washingtons at the presidential mansion. Just their names \u2014 Austin, Paris, Hercules, Christopher Sheels, Richmond, Giles, Oney Judge, Moll and Joe \u2014 remain engraved into a cement wall.<\/p>\n
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FILE \u2013 An informational panel is seen at President\u2019s House Site Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo\/Matt Rourke, File)\n<\/p>\n
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FILE \u2013 People look an informational panel at President\u2019s House Site Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo\/Matt Rourke, File)\n<\/p>\n
![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Slavery_Exhibit_Removed_70119.jpg?w=620\")
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FILE \u2013 People walk past an informational panel at President\u2019s House Site Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo\/Matt Rourke, File)\n<\/p>\n
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FILE \u2013 An informational panel is seen at President\u2019s House Site Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo\/Matt Rourke, File)\n<\/p>\n
Expand<\/a><\/p>\n Seeking to stop the display\u2019s permanent removal, the city of Philadelphia on Thursday sued Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and acting National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me affirm, for the residents of the city of Philadelphia, that there is a cooperative agreement between the city and the federal government that dates back to 2006,\u201d Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said during a press conference Friday. \u201cThat agreement requires parties to meet and confer if there are to be any changes made to an exhibit.\u201d<\/p>\n Slavery is central to the site\u2019s story, Philadelphia\u2019s lawsuit argues: The people enslaved at the mansion included Oney Judge, who famously ran away and remained free despite Washington\u2019s attempts to return her to bondage.<\/p>\n The panels came down because Trump\u2019s order requires federal agencies to review interpretive materials to \u201censure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values,\u201d an Interior Department statement said. It called the city\u2019s lawsuit frivolous, aimed at \u201cdemeaning our brave Founding Fathers who set the brilliant road map for the greatest country in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n The department did not answer questions about what will replace the exhibits that were removed.<\/p>\n Critics condemned the removals as confirmation the Trump administration seeks to erase unflattering aspects of American history.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir shameful desecration of this exhibit raises broader, disturbing questions about this administration\u2019s continued abuse of power and commitment to whitewashing history,\u201d said Rep. Dwight Evans, a Democrat whose district includes the city.<\/p>\n \u201cAmerica\u2019s history, as painful as some chapters are, isn\u2019t disparaged by telling the whole truth. Trying to whitewash American history, however, disparages who we are. This is yet another egregious example of revisionist history that will be reviled for generations,\u201d said Philadelphia state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta.<\/p>\n Taking pride in American independence shouldn\u2019t mean hiding its mistakes, said Ed Stierli, a regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association. Historic sites should help Americans grapple with our difficult truths and historical contradictions, he said. Removing the exhibit insults the memory of the enslaved people who lived there, reverses years of collaborative work and \u201csets a dangerous precedent of prioritizing nostalgia over the truth,\u201d Stieri said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt shows that the United States is still unwilling to reckon with the horrors of its past and would rather prefer to sanitize the history that it has and try to present a convenient lie,\u201d said Timothy Welbeck, director of the Center for Anti-Racism at Temple University.<\/p>\n As the Trump administration\u00a0prepares to celebrate the country\u2019s 250th anniversary<\/a>, it has focused on a more positive telling of the American story and\u00a0put pressure on federal institutions<\/a>\u00a0including\u00a0the Smithsonian<\/a>\u00a0to tell a version of history less focused on race.<\/p>\n The executive order Trump signed last March accused the Biden administration of advancing a \u201ccorrosive ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania \u2014 where our Nation declared that all men are created equal \u2014 the prior administration sponsored training by an organization that advocates dismantling \u2018Western foundations\u2019 and \u2018interrogating institutional racism\u2019 and pressured National Historical Park rangers that their racial identity should dictate how they convey history to visiting Americans because America is purportedly racist,\u201d the order states.<\/p>\n Brewer reported from Norman, Oklahoma. Dorany Pineda contributed to this story from Los Angeles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By TASSANEE VEJPONGSA and GRAHAM LEE BREWER, Associated Press PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Outraged critics accused President Donald Trump…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6744,3295,139,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-95022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-national-news","tag-network","tag-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95022","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=95022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}