Trump admin ordered to revive George Washington slavery exhibit
By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM
An exhibit about 9 individuals enslaved by George Washington should be restored at his former dwelling in Philadelphia after President Donald Trump’s administration took it down final month, a federal choose dominated on President’s Day, the federal vacation honoring Washington’s legacy.
The town of Philadelphia sued in January after the Nationwide Park Service eliminated the explanatory panels from Independence Nationwide Historic Park, the location the place George and Martha Washington lived with 9 of their slaves within the 1790s, when Philadelphia was briefly the nation’s capital.
The elimination got here in response to a Trump govt order “restoring reality and sanity to American historical past” on the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks. It directed the Inside Division to make sure these websites don’t show parts that “inappropriately disparage Individuals previous or dwelling.”
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FILE – Individuals stroll previous an informational panel at President’s Home Website Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photograph/Matt Rourke, File)
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FILE – Individuals stroll previous an informational panel at President’s Home Website Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photograph/Matt Rourke, File)
U.S. District Decide Cynthia Rufe dominated Monday that each one supplies should be restored of their unique situation whereas a lawsuit difficult the elimination’s legality performs out. She prohibited Trump officers from putting in replacements that specify the historical past in another way.
Rufe, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, started her written order with a quote from George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” and in contrast the Trump administration to the guide’s totalitarian regime referred to as the Ministry of Fact, which revised historic information to align with its personal narrative.
“As if the Ministry of Fact in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Energy,’ this Courtroom is now requested to find out whether or not the federal authorities has the facility it claims — to dissemble and disassemble historic truths when it has some area over historic details,” Rufe wrote. “It doesn’t.”
She had warned Justice Division attorneys throughout a January listening to that they have been making “harmful” and “horrifying” statements once they stated Trump officers can select which elements of U.S. historical past to show at Nationwide Park Service websites.
The Inside Division didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the ruling, which got here whereas authorities workplaces have been closed for the federal vacation.
The choose didn’t present a timeline for when the exhibit should be restored. Federal officers can enchantment the ruling.
The historic website is amongst a number of the place the administration has quietly eliminated content material concerning the historical past of enslaved individuals, LGBTQ+ individuals and Native Individuals.
Signage that has disappeared from Grand Canyon Nationwide Park stated settlers pushed Native American tribes “off their land” for the park to be established and “exploited” the panorama for mining and grazing.
Final week, a rainbow flag was taken down on the Stonewall Nationwide Monument, the place bar patrons rebelled in opposition to a police raid and catalyzed the fashionable LGBTQ+ rights motion. The administration has additionally eliminated references to transgender individuals from its webpage concerning the monument, regardless of a number of trans ladies of colour being key figures within the rebellion.
The Philadelphia exhibit, created 20 years in the past in a partnership between town and federal officers, included biographical particulars about every of the 9 individuals enslaved by the Washingtons on the dwelling, together with two who escaped.
Amongst them was Oney Decide, who was born into slavery on the household’s plantation in Mount Vernon, Virginia, and later escaped from their Philadelphia home in 1796. Decide fled north to New Hampshire, a free state, whereas Washington had her declared a fugitive and revealed commercials looking for her return.
As a result of Decide had escaped from the Philadelphia home, the park service in 2022 supported the location’s inclusion in a nationwide community of Underground Railroad websites the place they might train about abolitionists and escaped slaves. Rufe famous that supplies about Decide have been amongst these eliminated, which she stated “conceals essential info linking the location to the Community to Freedom.”
Solely the names of Decide and the opposite eight enslaved individuals — Austin, Paris, Hercules, Richmond, Giles, Moll and Joe, who every had a single title, and Christopher Sheels — remained engraved in a cement wall after park service workers took a crowbar to the plaques on Jan. 22.
Hercules additionally escaped in 1797 after he was delivered to Mount Vernon, the place the Washingtons had many different slaves. He reached New York Metropolis regardless of being declared a fugitive slave and lived beneath the title Hercules Posey.
A number of native politicians and Black group leaders celebrated the ruling, which got here whereas many have been out rallying on the website for its restoration.
State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, a Philadelphia Democrat, stated the group prevailed in opposition to an try by the Trump administration to “whitewash our historical past.”
“Philadelphians fought again, and I couldn’t be extra happy with how we stood collectively,” he stated.
