On Thursday (Jan. 22), a series of informational signs spotlighting Black history was removed from the President’s House in Old City, Philadelphia, following President Donald Trump’s directive. Operated by the National Park Service, crew members were seen removing panels, including one that detailed the slave trade and slave economy from the historic site’s outdoor exhibit entitled “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,” which honored people enslaved by George Washington at the house where the first president once lived. The “Life Under Slavery” and “The Dirty Business of Slavery” were also among the many Black historical exhibits taken down.
“It’s a disgrace, and that’s an understatement,” Michael Coard, leader of the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I cannot say what I’m thinking, because as a criminal defense attorney, I know better. What’s going on now is absolutely unheard of in the history of the United States of America.”
This comes months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order specifically calling out the “improper ideology” at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historic Park, which includes the President’s House among other landmarks and the National Smithsonian museums. The order, entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” claims that the Biden administration advanced a “corrosive ideology” that “pressured National Historical Park rangers that their racial identity should dictate how they convey history to visiting Americans because America is purportedly racist.”
“Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth,” Trump’s executive order noted. “This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.”
Despite activists, historians, and organizations like the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition petitioning against the President’s order, a statement from the Department of the Interior confirmed that the Philadelphia exhibits removal was done in accordance to Trump’s March 2025 directive.
“The President has directed federal agencies to review interpretive materials to ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values,” the department said in a statement to the New York Times. “Following completion of the required review, the National Park Service is now taking action to remove or revise interpretive materials in accordance with the Order.”
As videos of crew members stripping the exhibit’s walls circulated online, sparking outrage across the country, one crew member reportedly kept repeating, “I’m just following my orders.”
Hours after the exhibits’ removal, the city of Philadelphia filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration, specifically the US Interior Department, Secretary Doug Burgum, the National Park Service, and its acting director, Jessica Bowron.
“The interpretive displays relating to enslaved persons at President’s House are an integral part of the exhibit and removing them would be a material alteration to the exhibit,” the city’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit, per CNN. “Without notice to the City of Philadelphia, the National Park Service has removed artwork and informational displays at the President’s House site referencing slavery, presumably pursuant to the mandate in the Executive Order.”
They added: “Defendants have provided no explanation at all for their removal of the historical, educational displays at the President’s House site, let alone a reasoned one.”
The Philadelphia exhibits dismantling is only the Trump administration’s latest attempt to erase and censor Black history from national institutions. Some of the administration’s other actions in this past year have included the scrubbing of Black historical figures from federal websites, ordering the removal of items promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion from National Parks gift shops, and more.
