Local leaders and activists demand the return of slavery exhibits to the President’s House Site

The Black activists and community members who brought the President’s House Site into being are not letting its history be removed quietly.

A couple hundred supporters and local leaders organized by the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition rallied at the President’s House Site on Tuesday afternoon to demand the restoration of its slavery memorial after the National Park Service removed all of its informational and educational materials last month.

“History is not merely a collection of celebrated moments,” said Catherine Hicks, president of the NAACP Philadelphia Branch. “This action is a disservice to our city, our nation and denies future generations in the chance to learn from our history, fostering an environment of ignorance rather than understanding.”

“This site is historic, holy ground,” said Michael Coard, an attorney and founding member of ATAC. “So now what? Now, we fight the good fight.”

ATAC was instrumental to the creation of President’s House on Independence Mall in 2010, a site that honors the nine people enslaved by George Washington while he lived at the precursor to the White House. The structure at Sixth and Market Streets featured video displays, illustrations and text-filled panels about the Atlantic slave trade and life under slavery, and detailed Washington’s dogged support for the institution.

Those exhibits were dismantled on Jan. 22, following directives from President Donald Trump’s administration to review and remove displays in National Parks that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” Thirteen exhibits from the President’s House were flagged for review this summer.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration filed a federal lawsuit against Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and acting National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron, and their respective agencies, on the day the panels were removed. The complaint argues that dismantling the exhibits was an “arbitrary and capricious” act that violated a 2006 cooperative agreement between the city and the federal government.

Following a Jan. 30 hearing in which District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe called the federal government’s argument that a president can unilaterally change the exhibits displayed in national parks “horrifying” and “dangerous,” and a Feb. 2 inspection of the removed panels as well as the President’s House site, the court ordered that the exhibits be kept safely.

The city filed an updated lawsuit with a new injunction request for the restoration of all the exhibits to the President’s House as they were the day before their removal. The federal government has until the end of the week to respond to the new filings, and another courtroom showdown is expected to follow.

Philadelphia’s collar counties filed on Monday a joint brief in support of the city’s lawsuit, joining previous briefs by Gov. Josh Shapiro, Democrats in Pennsylvania’s state Senate, and the advocacy groups who pushed for the creation of the exhibit.

“Attempts to unilaterally rewrite history will deprive residents and visitors” of the collar counties “of the full and accurate picture of the nation’s founding to which they are entitled,” the brief says.

The panels are currently being held in a storage facility owned by the National Park Service that is adjacent to the National Constitution Center, according to a legal filing by the Trump administration.

Ever since the panels were taken down with crowbars and wrenches, there has been an outpouring of support for the memorial to be restored, and outrage toward the Trump administration.

“If you want to hide the truth of slavery in Philadelphia, you might as well tear down the whole city because it was built on the blood of my people. You cannot hide the truth,” said Solomon Jones, a radio host and columnist for The Inquirer.

“To erase slavery is to erase American history. That would be to erase Mt. Vernon, to erase Wall Street ... because those structures were built by enslaved labor,” said Yvonne Studevan, a seventh-generation descendant of Mother Bethel AME’s Bishop Richard Allen.

Judy Butler, a South Philadelphia resident, said she was both heartbroken and angry once she learned that the President’s House exhibits were going to be removed.

“I felt violated, disrespected,” she said.

Butler, 66, said she’s been inspired watching from afar as people in Minnesota have braved the frigid temperatures to protest, observe and resist ICE’s occupation of the Minneapolis area. Coming to ATAC’s rally was something she felt she had to do.

“They’re taking down our history. ... How deplorable is that?” she said.