The city said in the suit that it learned Thursday that the educational panels that referred to slavery had been removed.<\/p>\n
“Removing the exhibits is an effort to whitewash American history,” Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson said in a statement<\/a> Thursday. “History cannot be erased simply because it is uncomfortable. Removing items from the President\u2019s House merely changes the landscape, not the historical record.”<\/p>\n NBC Philadelphia aired video Thursday<\/a> that shows people with crowbars taking down panels, one of which reads \u201cThe Dirty Business of Slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n The suit says the city was given no notice about the change to the President\u2019s House.<\/p>\n It calls the removal of the displays \u201carbitrary and capricious.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDefendants have provided no explanation at all for their removal of the historical, educational displays at the President\u2019s House site, let alone a reasoned one,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n White House spokesman Davis Ingle said Trump \u201ccontinues to fulfill his promise to restore truth and common sense to the United States and its institutions.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cPresident Trump is ensuring that we are honoring the fullness of the American story instead of distorting it in the name of left-wing ideology,\u201d Ingle said in a statement. <\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, said “all federal agencies are to review interpretive materials to ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values” while it implements Trump’s executive order.<\/p>\n “Following completion of the required review, the National Park Service is now taking appropriate action in accordance with the Order,” the spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n The National Park Service did not immediately respond to NBC News\u2019 requests for comment late Thursday.<\/p>\n Trump’s executive order directs the Department of the Interior in its materials not to include “descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times).\u201d<\/p>\n It instructs the department to \u201cinstead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n The order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History<\/a>,” has been criticized.<\/p>\n The American Historical Association said it \u201cegregiously misrepresents the work of the Smithsonian Institution,\u201d which the executive order criticized by name.<\/p>\n \u201cHistorians explore the past to understand how our nation has evolved. We draw on a wide range of sources, which helps us to understand history from different angles of vision,” the group said March 31<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Our goal is neither criticism nor celebration,” it said. “It is to understand \u2014 to increase our knowledge of \u2014 the past in ways that can help Americans to shape the future.”<\/p>\n The President\u2019s House is a site where President George Washington resided in Philadelphia, and he brought slaves who were in the home, according to the lawsuit and the National Park Service’s webpage about the site<\/a>. President John Adams also lived there.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the National Parks Conservation Association said the dismantling of the exhibit is “an insult to the memory of the enslaved people who lived there and to their descendants.” and “sets a dangerous precedent of prioritizing nostalgia over the truth.”<\/p>\n The House of Representatives urged the National Park Service in 2003 to recognize the slaves there. The agency and the city entered into a cooperative agreement in 2006 to establish an exhibit about the site, the suit says.<\/p>\n A memorial and panels about slavery at the President\u2019s House have been up since it opened in 2010, according to the suit.<\/p>\n The Black Journey, a group that conducts walking tours in Philadelphia about Black history, said removing the panels can\u2019t erase the past.<\/p>\n “The Black Journey is outraged and deeply disappointed by the removal of this important and irreplaceable piece of American history,” Raina Yancey, president and CEO of The Black Journey, said in a statement. <\/p>\n Yancey said the group will continue to lead weekly tours and pursue its mission “to tell the full and truthful history of our ancestors,” saying “no political action will silence this history.”<\/p>\n She added that since the removal occurred, she has heard from fellow tour guides and individuals who have taken tours. <\/p>\n “Their messages make it clear: the public will not accept the erasure of history, and neither will we,” she said.<\/p>\n U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., whose district includes part of Philadelphia and the President’s House, also condemned the removal.<\/p>\n “Philadelphia and the entire country deserve an honest accounting of our history, and this effort to hide it is wrong,” he said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n CAIR-Philadelphia Executive Director Ahmet Tekelioglu said the civil rights organization “stands in solidarity with the City of Philadelphia, advocacy groups, civil rights leaders, and historians.”<\/p>\n Tekelioglu said the exhibit’s removal “has drawn widespread condemnation from community leaders, historians, and elected officials who argue that understanding the full scope of American history \u2014 including the brutal reality of slavery \u2014 is critical to our collective progress.”<\/p>\n During the Trump administration, the National Park Service has made other changes that have backtracked on previous information.<\/p>\n![\"Items](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/260122-Philadelphia-Independence-National-Park-aa-1043-6419f7.jpg\")
Panels removed from the grounds of the President\u2019s House Site in Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia.NBC Philadelphia \/ NBC News<\/p>\n