As the Trump administration targets a slavery exhibit, here’s why Philadelphia wants to keep its version on display

Philadelphia —

Just days before America’s 250th birthday – and just steps from the country’s birthplace – visitors to the City of Brotherly Love discover an unusual sight: an incomplete national park.

“It’s a living historical moment,” said Mijuel Johnson, a local guide with a group called The Black Journey, who spends much of his workday giving guided tours of Philadelphia’s historic district.

Right next to some of America’s most recognizable landmarks — including where the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence — a months-long legal battle between the city of Philadelphia and the Trump administration over a slavery exhibit has brought a portion of Independence National Historical Park to a standstill.

This fight is just part of the Trump administration’s ongoing campaign to purge cultural institutions of anything that conflicts with the president’s policy directives, backed by an executive order “restoring truth and common sense” to American history.

But in this case, the result was missing physical pieces, a legal tangle involving multiple courts and parties, and a city galvanized to keep the history of slavery alive.

However, it is unclear whether the site will be restored, removed or replaced in the near future. The next step is up to the federal government.

“Hopefully when this is all back up, we can add something that speaks to this part of the history of the memorial,” Johnson told CNN, referring to the battle over the exhibit as tourists walked through the site.

The conflict itself over how to represent slavery, Johnson argued, should also eventually be commemorated.

The dispute involves the President’s House, a perhaps lesser-known outdoor portion of Philadelphia’s National Park that includes the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. Presidents George Washington and John Adams lived in the house.

For more than a decade, the President’s House has honored the lives of nine men and women enslaved by George Washington in one of the homes he resided in while he was president. The exhibit, created as a collaboration between the City of Philadelphia and the National Park Service, also featured a historical timeline of American slavery.

But as part of President Donald Trump’s executive order “Restoring Truth and Reason to American History” and his administration’s nationwide efforts to remove content from cultural institutions that “inappropriately disparages past or living Americans,” the Interior Department targeted the site for editing.

In January, a video from CNN affiliate WPVI showed work crews dismantling large billboards at the site with crowbars.

The city of Philadelphia sued to stop the federal government from changing the exhibit and initially won in court.

“…this Court is now called upon to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims – to conceal and dismantle historical truths while having some power over historical facts,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Cynthia Rufe in an opinion issued in February.

“It’s not,” Rufe said.

The original exhibits have started to come back up.

But the Trump administration appealed and the restoration stopped. The Interior Ministry then proposed its own new exhibition, less focused on slavery than the original exhibition.

On June 18, a three-judge panel unanimously sided with the DOI, overturning a decision the city won in February.

Judges on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that not only did the City of Philadelphia no longer own the President’s House site, they also concluded that the Trump administration’s revised exhibit was “replete with historical context.”

“(The new panels) recognize the evil of slavery, including its injustices and hypocrisies, and, in telling the story of the nine slaves that Washington kept in the president’s household, remind us of their essential humanity,” reads the opinion written by Thomas Hardiman, a judge appointed by George W. Bush.

Johnson, the local guide, looked down and held back a laugh as CNN read aloud the text of the opinion, published the day before June 16.

‘Whitewashing History’: Critics Slam Removal of Slavery Exhibition

‘Whitewashing History’: Critics Slam Removal of Slavery Exhibition

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Since the government released its panel proposals in April, supporters of the old exhibit have argued that the new panels whitewash the horrors of slavery, while softening George Washington’s views on it.

For example, one of the original panels noted that at his Virginia plantation, President Washington “supervised more than 300 slaves, nine of whom served in his Philadelphia household.”

One of the new replacement panels on the subject does not share the number of slaves Washington owned and says in part: “Privately, George Washington often expressed his discomfort with the institution and his desire to see it abolished.”

“Yet as the owner of a Virginia plantation, his wealth and livelihood were deeply tied to it.”

A Philadelphia Inquirer analysis also notes that “most new panels do not recognize people enslaved by Washington.”

“Regardless of what the new signs say,” Johnson said, “these are not the original signs that were made for this site. And they are not needed.”

The decision was a blow to the city, some say, because many thought the matter was settled.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker pledged on X to “pursue all possible legal action” to overturn the decision.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro wrote that he would “stand up to anyone who attempts to whitewash some of the most important chapters of our shared history.”

Civil rights activist and lawyer Michael Coard was not surprised.

“Every advance that Black people have made in this country since the birth of American slavery in 1619 has been accompanied by struggle,” argued Coard, who leads the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, which helped create the President’s House site more than 15 years ago.

“Even though I wasn’t surprised, I was ready,” Coard said.

Although Coard would not say what specific actions his group would take next, since they are a party to the case, he and others noted that the story is not over.

The city of Philadelphia could ask the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the case or even appeal to the Supreme Court. Coard also indicated that his group could file a new, separate lawsuit.

When asked about potential next steps this week, the city had no official comment beyond the mayor’s original X statement.

But some city residents are waiting to see how a separate court battle in Boston over changes to several national parks, including the President’s House, plays out to get answers.

CNN contacted the White House and the Interior Department to ask if any changes to Philadelphia’s national park were planned before July 4, when visitors from around the world are expected in the city for the 250th anniversary celebrations and the World Cup.

The White House referred CNN’s questions to the Justice Department. Neither the DOJ nor the DOI responded.

And for now, the President’s House remains visibly incomplete.

A week after the appeals court’s decision, a group of local volunteers spoke with tourists as they passed through the President’s House.

Amateur guides enthusiastically shared binders containing the text of the missing original panels and read them aloud.

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I do,” Coard said, “I have to thank President Trump.”

Because of the controversy, Coard argued, the lesser-known slavery exhibit had received “more public relations and credibility than we could ever have paid for.”

And local residents are also there to learn from the exhibition.

“We have our neighborhood friends here. They’re right here reading (the text of the removed signs),” Johnson said.

“It’s not a solution at all – everything needs to be put back in place – but it shows how much people in Philadelphia really care about history,” the professional guide said.

Patricia Jones, a Philadelphia native and local high school history teacher, heard about the Battle of the President’s House and wanted to see the site for herself.

“I think it doesn’t matter what people are going to search for and want to know about (the history of slavery on the site),” Jones told CNN.

“There will always be someone who can tell the story and the truth no matter what,” she said, thumbing through a binder containing the original text of the exhibit.

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