Scene Through the Lens with photographer Tom Gralish.
Bystanders at the President’s House try to prevent a “counter-protester” from ripping down notes posted by visitors where panels about slavery had been removed in January.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
The brief confrontation came this week in front of the empty frames where visitors had been taping informal signs to fill the void where the original panels hung at the President’s House, after President Donald Trump’s administration removed the slavery exhibits last month.
Glenn Bergman and his wife Dianne Manning were just arriving at the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition’s annual Presidents’ Day observance. They had earlier attended the weekly ICE vigil a few blocks away. Bystanders yelled at the woman to stop as she declared it was her “First Amendment right” while tearing off the notes.
Bergman stepped in to block her, saying later, he “had to do something.” After a few seconds everyone stepped away, accusing her of “littering.”
She grabbed the papers off the ground and left abruptly, shouting “George Washington made this country great... for white people.”
The entire interaction lasted less than three minutes — and unfolded right on the other side of the wall from where the main advocacy organization leading the fight to protect the President’s House was gathered.
As the week of Presidents’ Day ends, I’m moving that presidential apostrophe back a letter and remembering my time photographing at the President’s House.
It is almost a year since our current President signed Executive Order #14253, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” on Mar. 27, 2025.
In addition to requiring the Secretary of the Interior to develop a plan to improve Independence National Historical Park in preparation for our 250th birthday, he directed National Park Service staff to identify language and historical depictions that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”
In May, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order that signs be posted in all National Park asking employees and visitors to report any negative information.
In July, President Donald Trump’s administration started taking steps to review or remove materials key to understanding the history of race in America.
Panel at the President’s House shows Presidents Washington and Adams and Ona (Oney) Judge, George Washington’s 22 year-old enslaved seamstress. She fled the household on May 21, 1796 for New Hampshire, “where she married, raised a family and lived to old age.” Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Mijuel Johnson with The Black Journey: African-American Walking Tour of Philadelphia, leads visitors from Charlotte, North Carolina in the President’s House July 23, 2025.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Johnson discusses the names of nine enslaved people who lived and worked at the House are engraved in stone on the site. Visible are: Austin and Paris, horsemen and stable hands; Hercules, the chief cook; Christopher Sheels, Washington's personal attendant; Richmond, Hercules’ son and kitchen worker; and Giles, a driver and stable hand.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Visitors view a panel titled, “The Dirty Business of Slavery” at the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Detail of a President’s House panel on the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A panel titled, “The House of the People Who Worked and Lived in It.” Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A panel titled “Intoning Inspiration” in front of Independence Hall shows three Americans who spoke at the Hall and Liberty Bell. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass (left) gave a speech against slaveholding in 1844; President-elect Abraham Lincoln (right) stopped on his inaugural journey to Washington D.C. in 1861 and pondered the meaning of “all men are created equal; ” and Suffragette Susan B. Anthony (not shown) and others disrupted the nation's centennial celebration on July 4, 1876 to read the “Declaration of the Rights of Women of the United States.”Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Visitors at the Liberty Bell Center.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A Liberty Bell exhibit that discusses the Bell’s travels across the country during the era of Reconstruction.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A Liberty Bell exhibit on the many symbolic uses of the bell throughout history. The Quakers were the first to make the explicit connection between the Liberty Bell, the scandal of slavery, and the need for abolition. The first reference to the Liberty Bell in print was published by the Boston Anti-Slavery Society in 1835.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Visitors at the Liberty Bell pass an exhibit that discusses the Bell’s travels across the country during the post-Reconstruction period. The image below is of Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederacy who visited the bell as it traveled near his home on its way to New Orleans in 1885 for the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition, an event that symbolized national reconciliation following the Civil War. The panel reads Davis, “represented many Americans who revered the Liberty Bell, but whose vision of human rights excluded African Americans.”Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Empty panels (left) in the West Wing of Independence Hall's West Wing.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
An iPad exhibit that gives a virtual tour of the second floor in Independence Hall and the room when men, women, and children accused as "fugitive slaves" stood to lose their liberty in a courtroom set up after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
The Benjamin Franklin Museum gift shop.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
The words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution are engraved in a monument in Independence National Historical Park Wednesday, July 23, 2025. Park employees have flagged descriptions and displays for review in response to President Trump’s executive order to remove or cover up materials that “inappropriately disparage Americans.” Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
But it didn’t happen until last month.
I was on another assignment nearby when the newspaper received a tip workers were on the site “with tape measures.”
They weren’t talking to our reporter, already on the site, when I arrived to find park service workers indeed examining the panels. So I just assumed if they would be dismantling the exhibits it would happen in the middle of the night — like when the statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo was “disappeared” and his Italian Market mural was erased under cover of darkness in 2020.
I made a few photos then left to edit and upload, only to get a text, “it’s happening now.”
Workers remove the displays art the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
National Park Service workers remove the displays at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026.Read moreElizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Workers remove the displays at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Workers remove the display panels, including on for Oney Judge (right) at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
National Park Service workers remove the displays at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026.Read moreElizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Visitors at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026 watch as workers remove more a dozen displays about slavery that were flagged for the Trump administration’s review.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Workers remove the displays at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Workers remove the displays at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Workers remove the displays at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Workers remove the displays at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Visitors pass through the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026 minutes after more a dozen displays about slavery were flagged for the Trump administration’s review were removed.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Workers remove the display of panel for Oney Judge at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Workers remove the displays at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Workers remove the displays at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
It was awkward as the workers asked me to “give us a break,” while I hovered around — not right on top of them — watching every move. I replied we were both doing our jobs.
It wasn’t long before other news media arrived, and I continued to document the entire removal. I was joined by photographer Elizabeth Robertson who made a photo from our newsroom overlooking the site. Later that evening, I returned to a much quieter scene.
That wasn’t the end of it. Protests continued...
… and the City of Philadelphia sued the National Park Service and Department of Interior. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe inspected the removed panels in storage for herself, visited the President’s House site, then ordered the federal government “restore the President’s House Site to its physical status as of January 21, 2026,” which is the day before the exhibits were removed.
Judge Cynthia Rufe (center) visits the President's House in Independence National Historical Park on Monday while hearing the Parker administration’s suit to have President Trump’s administration restore the slavery panels the National Park Service removed on Jan. 22.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Judge Rufe and attorneys pass through the lobby of the National Constitution Center on their way to privately view the removed panels in storage.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Rufe (right) walks from the Constitution Center toward the President's House.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Rufe (center) walks from the Constitution Center toward thePresident’s House in Independence National Historical Park. The judge, lawyers, and others involved with the city’s lawsuit against the federal government had inspected exhibits removed from the historic site that had neen placed in storage there.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Mijuel Johnson (left) with The Black Journey: African-American Walking Tour of Philadelphia, leads Rufe (second from left) as she visits the President's House.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Johnson amd Rufe stop at the engraving in stone of the names of nine enslaved people who lived and worked in George Washington’s household.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Rufe listens to guide Johnson (right) as she visits the President's House.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Judge Cynthia Rufe, attorneys and news medial visit the President's House.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Judge Rufe pauses under in the entrance to the reconstructed "ghost" structure with partial walls and windows officially titled, “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation.” Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Johnson guides Judge Rufe as she visits the President's House. They were inside the “Memorial to Enslaved People of African Descent in the United States of America." Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Judge Rufe views the memorial. The exhibit at the President’s House was not removed with other panels at the site on Jan. 22.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Judge Cynthia Rufe visits the President's House in Independence National Historical Park Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, while hearing the Parker administration’s suit to have President Trump’s administration restore the slavery panels the National Park Service removed on Jan. 22.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Trump administration officials appealed her ruling calling it “unnecessary judicial intervention” and on Presidents’ Day, when Glenn Bergman and Dianne Manning of Mt. Airy were attending the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition rally, Judge Rufe issued an injunction that required the federal agencies to restore the interpretive panels.
So we all waited to see what happened next. The “what’s next?” was two days later the federal judge, citing the agencies’ “failure to comply” set a deadline of 5 p.m. Friday.
A spokesperson for the White House defended their inaction saying removal of the exhibits is not final because the Department of the Interior is “engaged in an ongoing review of our nation’s American history exhibits in accordance with the President’s executive order to eliminate corrosive ideology, restore sanity, and reinstate the truth.”
Upon hearing the news I thought, “Friday is my day off. I will just have to read what my excellent reporting colleagues Fallon Roth, Maggie Prosser, and Abraham Gutman write about it. And live vicariously through the photos by whichever of my photo co-workers gets the assignment.“
I just couldn’t stay away, so I returned to the site early Thursday morning, just to “babysit.”
After about 30 minutes and only seeing two visitors, a park service worker arrived with a 5-gallon Lowe’s plastic blue bucket ($4.95, lid sold separately) and another, plain white plastic pail full of rags. More prep work for Friday, my day off, I figured.
When he returned with a six-foot Little Giant ladder ($255.99, King Kombo), I asked “so you’re not just doing more cleaning, right?”
Workers return the displays to the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Feb, 19, 2026. A federal judge earlier in the week ordered the Trump administration to restore the slavery exhibits that the National Park Service removed last month.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Workers re-hang the displays.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Visitors tour Independence National Historical Park while Workers hang the displays at the President’s House.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A worker carries one of the slavery-related panels - “The Keeper of the House” - before hanging it.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Workers remove panels from their vehicle, after retrieving them from storage.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Workers re-hang the displays at the President’s House.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Aaron Rura, 9, records the scene along with news photographers. He was visiting Philadelphia with his parents and older sister from Boston during a break from school, his mom said, “to learn more about history.”Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Workers consult “before” photos as they re-hang the panels.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Workers hang the displays at the President’s House near Independence Hall.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Visitors pass through Independence National Historical Park as workers re-hang the displays at the President’s House. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker visits the site as workers return the slavery displays. She thanked them, and one replied, “It’s our honor.” Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Hillary O’Carroll (right) applauds as workers hang the displays. She said she wanted to make sure they were appreciated, and was going to clap for each sign they return. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A hand-written message left earlier by a visitor is on an empty panel frame.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A worker cleans the glass panel for Oney Judge after re-hanging it. She was an enslaved woman owned by George Washington, who fled the President’s House on May 21, 1796 for New Hampshire. The panel notes that, “she married, raised a family and lived to old age.”Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A worker cleans the glass on the panel for Oney Judge panel.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Steven Sims, superintendent of Independence National Historical Park watches the re-hanging of panels.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
News photographers record the scene as workers re-hang the displays.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A worker pauses while re-hanging displays. Visitors had been taping informal signs on the empty frames, filling the void where the original panels hung.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Visitors to Independence National Historical Park view the newly returned displays at the President’s House.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
An electronic billboard with the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition is parked at the President’s House on Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Feb, 19, 2026, following a rally after the return of some of the slavery exhibits that the National Park Service removed last month.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
I alerted my newsdesk, and spent the next six hours there.
Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
