National Park Service removed the George Washington slavery exhibit at Philadelphia's President's House Site

On January 22, 2026, the National Park Service began removing 34 educational panels and video presentations from the President's House Site at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia — an outdoor exhibit, opened in 2010, documenting the nine people George Washington enslaved while living there as president, including Austin, Christopher Sheels, Giles, Hercules, Joe Richardson, Moll, Oney Judge, Paris, and Richmond. The removal implemented President Trump's March 27, 2025 executive order "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," which directs federal cultural sites to remove content that "inappropriately disparages Americans past or living." Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson called the removal an effort "to whitewash American history," and the city filed suit against Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, acting NPS Director Jessica Bowron, and the National Park Service to force the exhibit's restoration.

Updates

2026-02-16 — Federal judge ordered the exhibit restored [2, 3]

On February 16, 2026, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe granted a preliminary injunction ordering NPS to restore the exhibit "in its original condition" while the city's lawsuit proceeded, and barred officials from installing a replacement telling the history differently. Rufe's opinion repeatedly invoked George Orwell's "1984," writing that the government's position was that history is "the property of the elected chief magistrate...at his whim to be scraped clean, hidden, or overwritten."

2026-06-18 — Third Circuit reversed the injunction [4]

On June 18, 2026, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed Judge Rufe's preliminary injunction in City of Philadelphia v. DOI, holding that NPS's removal of the panels was not a reviewable "final agency action" under the Administrative Procedure Act and that, while Philadelphia has standing to argue the federal government breached the 2006 cooperative agreement's maintenance obligation, that claim alone was not enough to justify keeping the injunction alive — the panel read "maintain" as a general management obligation, not a promise the exhibits would remain in place regardless of the owner's wishes. The breach-of-agreement claim itself was left unresolved, not decided against the city.

2026-07-14 — District court dismissed four of five claims, one proceeding [9, 10]

On July 14, 2026, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe dismissed four of the city's five claims for lack of jurisdiction per the Third Circuit's mandate, leaving only the breach-of- cooperative-agreement claim — the maintenance-obligation claim the Third Circuit's June 18 ruling left open — to proceed.

2026-07-15 — NPS installed replacement panels that soften Washington's record [5, 6]

Overnight on July 14 into July 15, 2026, NPS workers replaced the removed exhibit with new panels that retain some references to slavery but devote significantly more space to the "anti-slavery sentiments" of Washington and the early presidency; a panel formerly titled "The Dirty Business of Slavery" was replaced with one titled "Celebrating Independence Throughout the Years." Civil rights lawyer Michael Coard, who led the original campaign for the exhibit, called the new panels "maliciously outrageous," and Mayor Cherelle Parker said the administration installed them "under the cover of darkness."

2026-08-03 — Philadelphia asked the Third Circuit to rehear the case [7, 8]

On August 3, 2026, Philadelphia asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, or the same three-judge panel, to rehear its June ruling, arguing the panel was wrong on two issues of "exceptional importance": that the removal was not a "final agency action" and that the city has no enforceable rights over the site's content. The city's filing argued the ruling lets a federal agency evade judicial review by announcing, even mid-litigation, that it might act differently later. The case remained pending as of this recording.