Philadelphia sues over Trump executive order calling for removal of slavery exhibit

People walk past an informational panel at President's House Site Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

PHILADELPHIA — Outraged critics accused U.S. President Donald Trump of “whitewashing history” on Friday after the U.S. National Park Service removed an exhibit on slavery at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park in response to his executive order “restoring truth and sanity to American history” at the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks.

Empty bolt holes and shadows are all that remains on the brick walls where explanatory panels were displayed at the President’s House Site, where George and Martha Washington lived with the people they owned as property when Philadelphia was the nation’s capital. One woman cried silently at their absence. Someone left a bouquet of flowers. A hand-lettered sign said “Slavery was real.”

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 -- Austin, Paris, Hercules, Christopher Sheels, Richmond, Giles, Oney Judge, Moll and Joe -- remain engraved into a cement wall.

Karen Oliver, a retired Philadelphian who was visited the exhibit Friday, said she was “heartbroken” at the removal of references to slavery and a chance for visitors to learn from the nation’s history.

“You show all of it,” she said. “The good, the bad, and the ugly.”

Seeking to stop the display’s permanent removal, the city of Philadelphia on Thursday sued U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and acting U.S. National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron.

“Let 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,” Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said during a press conference Friday. “That agreement requires parties to meet and confer if there are to be any changes made to an exhibit.”

Slavery is central to the site’s story, Philadelphia’s lawsuit argues: The people enslaved at the mansion included Oney Judge, who famously ran away and remained free despite Washington’s attempts to return her to bondage.

The panels came down because Trump’s order requires federal agencies to review interpretive materials to “ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values,” an U.S. Interior Department statement said. It called the city’s lawsuit frivolous, aimed at “demeaning our brave Founding Fathers who set the brilliant road map for the greatest country in the world.”

The department did not answer questions about what will replace the exhibits that were removed.

Critics condemned the removals as confirmation the Trump administration seeks to erase unflattering aspects of American history.

“Their shameful desecration of this exhibit raises broader, disturbing questions about this administration’s continued abuse of power and commitment to whitewashing history,” said Rep. Dwight Evans, a Democrat whose district includes the city.

“America’s history, as painful as some chapters are, isn’t 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,” said Philadelphia state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta.

Taking pride in American independence shouldn’t mean hiding its mistakes, said Ed Stierli, a regional director for the U.S. 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 “sets a dangerous precedent of prioritizing nostalgia over the truth,” Stieri said.

“It 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,” said Timothy Welbeck, director of the Centre for Anti-Racism at Temple University.

As the Trump administration prepares to celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary, it has focused on a more positive telling of the American story and put pressure on federal institutions including the Smithsonian to tell a version of history less focused on race.

The executive order Trump signed last March accused the Biden administration of advancing a “corrosive ideology.”

“At Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania -- where our Nation declared that all men are created equal -- the prior administration sponsored training by an organization that advocates dismantling `Western foundations’ and `interrogating institutional racism’ and pressured National Historical Park rangers that their racial identity should dictate how they convey history to visiting Americans because America is purportedly racist,” the order states.

The Associated Press