Photo: Getty Images North America
The National Park Service has removed an exhibit addressing slavery from the President’s House memorial at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, per Newsweek.
The removal stems from President Donald Trump's March executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which instructed the U.S. Department of the Interior to eliminate materials that the administration says promote a “corrosive ideology” about the nation’s past.
On Thursday (January 22), Park Service employees were seen taking down signage titled “Life Under Slavery” and “The Dirty Business of Slavery” from the site. The President’s House memorial commemorates the nine enslaved people held there by George Washington during his presidency.
Although the administration ordered the review and removal of multiple slavery-related exhibits nationwide as early as September, this marks one of the first known instances of physical removal. That earlier directive included the elimination of several exhibits and signs at national parks, among them a widely known photograph of an enslaved man bearing scars from whipping. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said at the time that park signage should “focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.”
Thursday's move drew sharp criticism from historians and civil rights advocates.
“It’s a disgrace and that’s an understatement. … What’s going on now is absolutely unheard of in the history of the United States of America," Michael Coard, leader of the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, said in a statement.
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