Workers have begun restoring the slavery exhibit at the President’s House Site on Philadelphia’s Independence Mall, a day after a judge set a Friday deadline for the Trump administration to do so.
The administration on Wednesday night asked U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe for a stay on the injunction while its appeal is pending in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Rufe on Monday ordered that the panels be restored while a lawsuit over the removal proceeds. Rufe, a President George W. Bush appointee, compared the administration’s rationale for removing the exhibit to the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s “1984” — a dystopian novel about authoritarianism.
The panels, removed in January by the National Park Service, depict the lives of nine people enslaved by George Washington while he lived in Philadelphia as president.
The city of Philadelphia promptly sued the Interior Department and the Park Service over the removal.
Bill Rooney, a Chestnut Hill resident, was passing by when he saw the restoration underway.
“It feels like history being made again,” he said. “To have that history taken down is a step back. It wasn’t right.”
Jasmine Gutierrez, visiting from Lakeland, Florida, said she was explaining the ongoing changes at the site to her two children, ages 8 and 11. “Why would they take it?” she recalled them asking.
Gutierrez described the exhibit removal as “actively trying to erase history.” She said she wants her kids to know that they have a voice. “We can’t just sit back and do nothing.”
Amid occasional applause from passersby, as workers restored the panels, an unnamed Park Service employee said, “It’s our honor.”
Mayor Cherelle Parker, speaking at a Black history event at The Union League celebrating The Philadelphia Tribune, reminded the audience that “today, we celebrate the return of our history to the President’s House exhibit.”
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