January 23, 2026
Michaela Althouse/PhillyVoice
A view from the President's House exhibit where the Trump administration removed displays acknowledging the enslaved people who lived at the site during George Washington's presidency. The exhibit is part of Independence National Historical Park.
Philadelphia and the federal government are trading blows over the Trump administration's removal of historical exhibits on slavery from the President's House site at Independence National Historical Park.
The signs in question, which workers pried off the brick and stone walls marking George Washington's former home at Sixth and Market streets on Thursday afternoon, already have sparked a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior. City Solicitor Renee Garcia characterized the removal as "arbitrary and capricious" in the suit filed Thursday. The federal agency defended its actions in an inflammatory statement Friday.
"We encourage the City of Philadelphia to focus on getting their jobless rates down and ending their reckless cashless bail policy instead of filing frivolous lawsuits in the hopes of demeaning our brave Founding Fathers who set the brilliant road map for the greatest country in the world — the United States of America," an interior department spokesperson said via email.
The lawsuit argues the Trump administration breached a cooperative agreement in taking down plaques and signage from the President's House site. The displays told the personal stories of enslaved people and detailed the history of the slave trade in America. Washington enslaved nine people at the former executive mansion, headquartered in Philadelphia before the nation's capital moved to Washington.
The removal followed nearly a year of federal scrutiny spurred by President Trump's executive order directing agencies to review text at public parks and monuments for "divisive narratives." Independence National Park was mentioned in the order as an example of a site promoting "corrosive ideology." Subsequent reports suggested the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Parks Service, planned to remove displays about slavery from the park.
Now that the Trump administration has taken action, Philadelphia solicitors are asking a judge to order the Interior Department and NPS to return the signs. The litigation also seeks an injunction that would prevent the agencies from damaging the displays, or removing them again without following relevant agreements and laws.
The suit specifically argues the Trump administration violated a 2006 cooperative agreement between the city and the NPS that gave Philly officials the right to approve the final design of the exhibit at the President's House.
"The City’s right to approve the exhibit’s final design, including the interpretive displays, would be meaningless if the NPS could at any time later change or remove the displays without the City's approval," the lawsuit reads.
Mayor Cherelle Parker backed the lawsuit at a press conference Friday, invoking the cooperative agreement central to the city's arguments.
"That agreement requires parties to meet and confer if there are to be any changes made to an exhibit," she said. "Our city solicitor, Renee Garcia, is working in conjunction with the amazing members of our law department team, and working to follow up on that cooperative agreement. We will keep you posted as to the results of all of our action."
In taking down the signs, city solicitors claim the federal government decided to "unilaterally rewrite history to suit the current Administration's preferred narrative."
"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 documents reads. "... There is no dispute that slaves resided at President's House or that one of President Washington's slaves escaped from that site."
A interior department spokesperson said their actions were pursuant to Trump's executive order and a subsequent order from Secretary Doug Burgum to review "interpretive materials to ensure accuracy, honesty and alignment with shared national values." The removal followed the completion of that review.
Read the suit below:
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