Letters to the Editor | Jan. 28, 2026

Authoritarians try to rewrite history, fashioning a story that reflects well on them. That’s why the Trump regime ordered the removal of the President’s House exhibits that tell the story of the people George and Martha Washington enslaved. Donald Trump denounced any public interpretation of our history that “inappropriately disparages” the United States.

But it’s not the historians and community activists who insult the white founders. They did that themselves, fighting for their own freedom while enslaving, raping, and torturing others. Washington continually rotated the people he enslaved out of Philadelphia, so as to evade the city’s six-month limit on owning other people. He went so far as to try multiple times to kidnap and re-enslave Ona Judge after she liberated herself in 1796.

This is Black history, but it is also white history. It is American history. I myself am descended from Virginia enslavers. I know the knots my people tied themselves in, trying to soften and justify what they did. But there it is in my great-great-grandfather’s diary, after he describes the weather: “This day my overseer beats my negro Shadrick for sleeping in.” My ancestors and other enslavers committed a grave crime against humanity. Only by telling this truth and facing it can we hope to even begin to redress the consequences of their crimes.

Sarah Browning, Philadelphia

As longtime educators (35 years) in Philadelphia, we are outraged and saddened that references to slavery at Independence National Historical Park have been removed. We cannot change history, but we can learn from it. Can we come together as people in Philadelphia to find a private location close to Independence Park to display these panels with the help of grants from foundations, such as the William Penn Foundation? Can we show visitors that we are proud citizens of a city that values brotherly and sisterly love? America was and is great. Let’s celebrate our Semiquincentennial while addressing the reality of our treatment of enslaved people and Native Americans.

Joseph T. and Barbara R. Devlin, Telford

The Trump administration’s removal of educational slavery exhibits from the President’s House site at Independence National Historical Park was apparently done on the basis that they “inappropriately disparage Americans, past or living.” Generations of Americans have learned of our history through such exhibits at national parks all around the country. This move to censor our true history serves no “Americans, past or living.”

Mark Baum Baicker, Carversville

After the National Park Service dismantled all of the displays memorializing the enslaved people at the President’s House, a call went out to Philly artists to contribute creative work to the now dismantled memorial.

As I headed out to the site with some artwork, I learned that federal officers had killed a protester in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse.

Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Marco Rubio, Russell Vought, et al. can’t find another country to invade that won’t bring down the condemnation of the international community. Instead, with the help of the U.S. Supreme Court, the GOP, and a handful of billionaires, they are waging war on the United States of America. We are on the receiving end of a deliberate form of cultural erasure, disappearing references about the brutality of slavery at the same time that the good people of this country are being abducted, beaten, incarcerated, and now, killed.

Cindy Maguire, Merion Station

I am outraged that the National Park Service removed the exhibits documenting slavery at the President’s House. Erasing those parts of our history that make us uncomfortable does not make “America Great Again.” What can make America great is the acknowledgment of its failures (past and present) with a firm commitment to righting those wrongs and making life better for everyone who lives here, regardless of where they come from, what color they are, whether they are rich or poor, or whether they are citizens or not. We seem to be drifting further and further away from any semblance of what makes a country great, from being an example for others to emulate. I wonder how future exhibits of this period in our nation’s history will be depicted — or if they will also be erased.

Kathleen Coyne, Wallingford

I am writing to urge that references to slavery not be removed from our national parks and historic sites. These places exist to tell the full American story, not a sanitized version of it.

Slavery is a painful and shameful part of our history, but it is also central to understanding who we are and how far we have come. Erasing or softening that history does not honor the past; it diminishes it. When visitors encounter honest accounts of slavery, they also encounter the reality of progress — the long struggle toward freedom, equality, and justice, and the fact that our nation ultimately rejected slavery as incompatible with its ideals.

National parks are uniquely positioned to educate. They should present history in context, with care and accuracy, showing both the wrongs that were committed and the moral courage it took to overcome them. Facing difficult truths helps us appreciate the progress that was made and reminds us why it mattered.

Preserving these references is not about assigning guilt to the present, but about understanding the past. An honest history strengthens our national character and ensures that the lessons of slavery — and the achievement of overcoming it — are not forgotten.

Martha Weinar, Cherry Hill

President Donald Trump and his administration, including the National Park Service, are wrong and foolish to remove the true story of slavery from the President’s House at Independence National Historical Park.

The President’s House is historic because it shares with only the White House in Washington, D.C., the distinction of being the official residence of two or more presidents. The President’s House was also at the center of America’s original sin of slavery, as George Washington lived there with enslaved people, and John Adams, an abolitionist, lived there without captives.

Trump and his followers are wrong to try to whitewash our national history. We must acknowledge our past, warts and all, and resolve to do better. And Trump is foolish. His censorship only draws more attention to what he is trying to deny. Americans are smarter than he is.

As another president famously said, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

Joseph Hoeffel, current volunteer ranger, Independence National Historical Park

The writer is a former member of Congress.

My grandmother, Margaret Washington, descendant of George Washington, and my grandfather, George Robins, descendant of Bishop William White, are probably rolling in their graves in the Christ Church graveyard over the removal of the signage at the President’s House nearby.

As a retired public schoolteacher and a Washington and White family descendant, I’m appalled at the removal of the exhibit signs about the people Washington enslaved. Included was one sign with images of the Rev. Absalom Jones and the Rev. Richard Allen.

Bishop White ordained Absalom Jones as our first African American Episcopal minister of St. Thomas Church.

I supported the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition’s work to bring the exhibits to the President’s House 20 years ago, and we need to continue to do so today.

Teaching the truth and supporting ongoing public education have been long-held values in our democracy as it progresses through time. We cannot erase historic harms. My grandchildren are the seventh generation of their family’s Philly ancestry, and we need to work now to stand up for the truth and our democracy for our unborn citizens in seven generations to come. We the People need to demand the return of the signs now and stand in truth together, protecting the birthplace of our democracy in our nation’s 250th anniversary year.

Peggy Hartzell, Glenmoore

Regarding the removal of the slavery exhibits at the President’s House, could the displays be recreated by either the city of Philadelphia or even a private organization with a GoFundMe page? Surely somebody must have photographs of those panels that were taken down. Set them up on public, private, or city-owned property nearby so they can still be seen, and the information contained therein is not removed from the public domain.

Doug Smithman, Dresher

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