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Slavery references at George Washington's Philadelphia home can be altered, court rules
AP News • • nation
Key Points:
- An appeals court ruled that the Trump administration can reinstall interpretive panels at the site of President George Washington’s home in Philadelphia, despite criticism that they whitewash the history of slavery.
- The new panels replace those from 2010, which detailed the lives of nine slaves living with the Washingtons in the 1790s, but the updated versions comply with Trump's 2025 executive order to avoid disparaging Americans and instead highlight national achievements.
- The replacement panels include information on slavery, abolition, the Constitution's treatment of slavery, and the Civil Rights movement but omit some detailed content like slave trade maps and critical headlines present in the earlier versions.
- The City of Philadelphia, which sued over the previous removal, is seeking to delay the reinstallation, arguing the site is historically significant and that the new panels diminish the previously told story.
- About half of the original panels were briefly reinstalled earlier this year before a court halted the process, and the government is pushing to reinstall the new panels without further delay.
