September 09, 2025
Joseph E.B. Elliott/National Parks System
Following a March executive order, the Trump administration reportedly reviewed and flagged exhibits mentioning slavery in Philadelphia for possible removal or alteration. One of them is a memorial to nine enslaved people that George Washington brought to Philadelphia, pictured at the President's House Site at the Independence National Park above.
Philadelphia museums and organizations dedicated to preserving history have condemned the Trump administration's plans to alter or eliminate exhibits that acknowledge slavery.
A coalition of 45 groups voiced its "strongest possible opposition" in a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. The message is a response to Trump's executive order, issued in March, to review public monuments, memorials and markers for "narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive." It specifically mentions Independence National Park, where the names of the nine enslaved people George Washington brought to Philadelphia are carved into a wall. Burgum's review reportedly flagged this exhibit and others at the park, as well as the Benjamin Franklin Museum and Second Bank.
The letter's signatories — including Bartram's Garden, the Betsy Ross House, the Science History Institute, the Wagner Free Institute of Science and the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance — urge Burgum to "abandon these politically motivated efforts to sanitize our past" in the three-page missive. Any plans to edit or remove signage at National Park Service sites, they say, are "ahistorical and un-American."
"History is not mythology," the letter reads. "It does not present or reinforce false narratives. When researched and analyzed with depth and scholarship, history captures the complete record of idealism and injustice, progress and regression in our shared journey toward a more perfect union. To eliminate or revise 'these truths,' glorious or not, is to deny the lived experiences of millions of Americans and perpetuate the harms of ignorance."
Local politicians including Mayor Cherelle Parker, Sens. Dave McCormick and John Fetterman and Reps. Brendan Boyle and Dwight Evans are copied on the message.
The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, one of the signatories, coordinated the joint action. The letter also features religious organizations like Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, which sits on the oldest parcel of U.S. land continuously owned by Black people, and the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas.
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