Philadelphia sues US government for removal of slavery-related exhibit | Philadelphia
Philadelphia is taking legal action against the Trump administration following the National Park Service’s decision to remove a well-established slavery-related exhibit at Independence National Historical Park, site of George Washington’s former residence.
The municipality made its application case The U.S. Department of the Interior and its secretary, Doug Burgum, along with the National Park Service and acting director Jessica Bowron, were named as defendants in federal court Thursday. The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring the exhibits to be restored while the lawsuit continues.
The exhibit stood on the site of the Presidential Building, once home to George Washington and John Adams, and included: information Getting to know the people enslaved by Washington along with a broader chronology of slavery in the United States.
“Interpretive exhibits about enslaved persons at the President’s House are an integral part of the exhibit, and their removal would be a material change to the exhibit,” city attorneys wrote in the legal filing. According to the lawsuit, officials were not notified in advance that the exhibit would be changed.
Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, harshly criticized the decision to remove the signs, arguing that Trump “will seize every opportunity to rewrite and whitewash our history.”
“But he picked the wrong city, and he definitely picked the wrong Commonwealth,” Shapiro added in a message. Published on X. “While it is painful, we are learning from our history in Pennsylvania.”
Philadelphia city council president Kenyatta Johnson said: in a statement On Thursday: “Removing exhibits is an attempt to whitewash American history. History cannot be erased simply because it is offensive. Removing items from the President’s House changes only the landscape, not the historical record.”
Congress in 2003 encouraged the National Park Service to formally recognize the enslaved people who lived and worked at the Presidential House. The lawsuit states that in 2006, the city and the agency agreed to collaborate on creating an exhibit for the site, which opened in 2010 with a memorial and informational panel focusing on slavery.
The exhibit’s removal is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to eliminate cultural content that doesn’t align with its policy agenda.
In an executive order issued last March, Trump accused the Biden administration of promoting “inappropriate, divisive, or anti-American ideology” and directed the secretary of the interior to replace materials under the department’s control that “were improperly removed or altered within the past five years to perpetuate an inaccurate revision of history or to improperly disparage or disparage certain historical figures or events.”
The Smithsonian Institution had already made changes to exhibits mentioning Trump since his return to office. Text describing his impeachment and his role in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, has been removed from the area next to his new official portrait in the National Portrait Gallery.
