Philadelphia struggle continues to restore historic panels on enslavement

Philadelphia

It was a celebratory rally at the President’s House exhibit next to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia on Feb. 19 as members of the Black-led Avenging the Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) and their supporters gathered to welcome the restoration of several of the panels depicting the lives of nine people enslaved by George Washington, the first U.S. president. 

ATAC speakers noted that not only did they stop the fascist Trump administration’s efforts to erase Black history, but their collective struggle also made history by demonstrating that Trump can be defeated when the people join forces, organize and fight back. 

ATAC organizer Mijuel Johnson, who earlier in the day broke the news that the panels were being restored, told the crowd: “Our struggle isn’t over, but as abolitionist Frederick Douglass once said, ‘Without struggle, there is no progress.’”

As part of President Donald Trump’s blatant attempt to erase the history of enslavement in the U.S., on Jan. 27, National Park Service (NPS) workers were ordered to remove 34 panels from the exhibit first established in 2010 after an eight-year struggle by ATAC. The City of Philadelphia, which shared responsibility for the site with the NPS until 2015, challenged Trump’s actions in federal court on Jan. 30 in a lawsuit against the Interior Department and the Park Service.

On Feb. 16, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe ordered the NPS to restore the exhibit on enslavement, giving them until Feb. 20 to comply. Blocking the full restoration of the remaining panels for the duration of Trump’s appeal, an hour before the Feb. 20 deadline, Judge Thomas Hardiman of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overruled Rufe’s order to comply with the injunction.

The site’s panels tell the stories of the nine enslaved Africans who lived and worked in Washington’s house. One panel, not yet restored, highlighted Washington’s signing of the infamous 1793 Fugitive Slave Act that put those who escaped enslavement at risk of recapture for the rest of their lives. Artwork on this display shows Washington’s hands holding a quill signing the Act, with a posse of white men with clubs and guns in the background shooting at four Black men escaping enslavement. 

In May 2025, all 433 National Park Service installations and other Interior Department holdings were given a mid-September deadline to rid exhibits, signs, films and bookstores of statements and literature determined by the Secretary of the Interior Douglas Burgum and Trump to be out of compliance. Trump has made it clear that race is the focus of his crusade against “wokeness.” In a social media post, Trump targeted the Smithsonian Institution in particular for unduly focusing on “how bad slavery was.” (New York Times, Aug. 19)

At one national park, an image known as “The Scourged Back” was ordered removed. The photograph, taken by Harpers Weekly in 1863, shows the scarred back of Peter Gordon, inflicted by enslavers before he escaped enslavement. A full-size copy of the picture has been prominent at many recent ATAC rallies.

‘We want reparations!’

Attorney Michael Coard, who founded ATAC, told the crowd: “What you have all done is to create history. We have fought the most powerful man on the planet now and won. At our town hall on January 27, we set out on a 30-day campaign — the first step was to restore this exhibit. The second was to enhance it, and the third was to replicate it across the country. We got the first step done in just 21 days.”

In the crowd, people also shouted out, “We want reparations!”

As the U.S. gets ready to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia this year, Coard addressed the fact that 41 of the 56 delegates who signed it were slaveholders. Many were from Southern colonies, but not all. He also noted that 12 of the 18 presidents in office between 1789 and 1877 were enslavers. 

We cannot allow this history to be buried.

The restoration of these historic panels in Philadelphia, following the resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis and beyond, are important reminders that Trump’s particular brand of end-stage capitalist fascism can be resisted, can be pushed back and can be defeated.