The slavery exhibits at the President's House have been removed following Trump administration push

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

Published Jan. 22, 2026, 4:22 p.m. ET


The National Park Service has started dismantling exhibits about slavery at the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park. The President’s House, which serves as a memorial to the nine people George Washington enslaved there during the founding of America, has come under increased scrutiny by President Donald Trump’s administration. The president and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered content at national parks that “inappropriately disparage” the U.S. to be reviewed and potentially removed.

Around 3 p.m. Thursday, an Independence Park employee told an Inquirer reporter that his supervisor instructed him to take down all the displays at the iconic site earlier that day. Two other individuals later joined the employee to help remove the educational exhibits.

The final display was removed at 4:30, the whole process taking about an hour and a half. “I’m just following my orders,” the employee repeatedly said, refusing to say whether he was tasked with removing the displays because of the executive order. One by one, the exhibits — including those entitled “Life Under Slavery” and “The Dirty Business of Slavery” — were taken down.

Michael Coard, leader of the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition which has helped lead an effort to protect the President’s House from the Trump administration said in an interview Thursday that the removal of the displays is an “abomination,” adding that Trump is a “monstrosity in the White House.” “It’s a disgrace and that’s an understatement,” Coard said. “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.”

Read more: https://www.inquirer.com/politics/nation/presidents-house-independence-park-exhibits-removed-20260122.html

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But remember - "Price of eggs", "Kitchen table issues", "Working class" and objecting to something like this is just "identity politics".

This is/was the (depiction of and at the location of the original) "President's House" where George Washington lived while Philadelphia was the Capital. He could only stay there about 6 months (?) a year due to the anti-slavery laws here in PA, so he would pack up his 9 slaves and head on down to Virginia.





Info on the archeology done before building the framework depiction - https://www.phillyarchaeology.net/philly-archaeology/archaeological-sites-of-interest/presidents-house-site-inhp/

They apparently removed the panels along the walls of the structure although I don't know what they did with the video monitors.

The original looked like this -



During the Yellow Fever outbreak, he fled to Germantown (the neighborhood here in Philly) and stayed here (that house is still there) -



As commerce encroached, it was torn down and well before "Independence Mall" was conceived, the house once stood where the empty space in the below was -



(more info on that - https://hiddencityphila.org/2020/12/a-history-of-slavery-presidents-house-monument-turns-10/)