In the heart of historic Philadelphia, community activists have spent more than a year fighting to preserve Black history against Trump administration attempts to rewrite it. On June 18, a federal appeals court sided with Trump and approved the installation of a new exhibit at the site of the President’s House, where George Washington illegally enslaved nine people. Under a 1780 state law, enslaved people were allowed to petition for their freedom within six months of arriving in Pennsylvania . To bypass that restriction, Washington sent the enslaved people back to his home in Virginia every few months. Despite the legal setback, and the fact that visitors to the memorial over the July 4 holiday and semiquincentennial celebrations saw only part of a Donald Trump-endorsed exhibit, the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) formed to create the memorial is not finished educating the public about the history of slavery on federal land.
The controversy has drawn a wave of new support for the memorial. The federal attack — which has lasted for over a year and is still ongoing thanks to a court case covering all national parks — has strengthened the coalition, bringing dozens of people to rally around the site at Sixth and Market streets, just steps from the Liberty Bell. On July 4, as festivities for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence took place throughout Philadelphia, ATAC hosted its biggest-ever “Black Independence Day” celebration. When the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government can replace the old exhibit, “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,” with its own version, it said that the administration’s replacement panels were “full of historical context.” But ATAC continues to push back against a version of history that whitewashes the reality of slavery in late 18th century Pennsylvania. As criminal defense attorney Michael Coard puts it, the federal government’s version suggests that it was “better to be a slave in the North than in the South.” The controversy has drawn a wave of new support for the memorial. Coard, a wiry, energetic man with a gray beard and long dreadlocks, is one of ATAC’s founders. At a rally this spring, Coard harkened back to the president’s first day in office in 2025, linking it to Trump’s attempt to rewrite Philadelphia’s history. Trump released dozens of executive orders, “all of them anti-Black,” the lawyer told the crowd, targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, critical race theory and affirmative action.
In March of 2025, Trump turned his attention to federal historical sites. A March 27 executive order called for Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to review public sites to eliminate content “that inappropriately disparages Americans past or living.” Among many others, the order singled out Independence National Historical Park because tour guides there characterized the United States as racist; it also called out the Smithsonian as “under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.” In May, Burgum issued an order targeting the President’s House site . A six-month deadline for action on the order came and went, and ATAC remained at the ready. When National Park Service employees removed the plaques on the afternoon of Jan. 27, 2026 — according to a member of the coalition, the workers told passersby they were “just doing their jobs” — the activists were prepared for what came next. A memorial built by community
Once the National Park Service removed the plaques, ATAC launched a 30-day campaign to restore the memorial. “We basically put together a strategy that was taken from our ancestors in the Civil Rights struggles in the ’50s and ’60s: Raise hell on the streets and raise issues in the courts,” Coard told a crowd at a Feb. 10 rally. The city of Philadelphia filed suit against the federal government, alleging a breach of contract, and ATAC followed it up with an amicus brief. And in the streets, the people of Philadelphia mobilized around the memorial. While Trump’s executive order characterized such sites as the product of the Biden administration, the existence of the President’s House memorial predates Biden by nearly two decades. A 2002 news article called Coard’s attention to the relocation of the Liberty Bell, one block west, where the Federal Residence Act of 1790 had established the first presidential residence at 6th and Market.
At that time, the revelation that George Washington illegally enslaved nine people in Philadelphia came as a surprise for Coard, who was born and raised in the city. In June 2002, a group met to form ATAC, and they embarked on a letter-writing and lobbying campaign to create a slavery memorial at the site. After an eight-year fight, in December 2010, the site was inaugurated to the public. It was the first slavery memorial on federal property.
That initial community effort was reawakened when the plaques were dismantled in January. A series of rallies to restore the memorial brought together supporters from across clergy, historians, City Council members and local politicians. “Raise hell on the streets and raise issues in the courts.” Among the clergy who took the stage at a February rally was Father Martini Shaw of the historic African Methodist Episcopal Church of Philadelphia, who emphasized the omnipresent reminders of slaveholders throughout the metropolis: the Girard Avenue thoroughfare bears the name of Stephen Girard, who enslaved people on his estate in Louisiana; Front and Market streets were home to the city’s slave market; Chew Avenue is named after a family of enslavers; the Logan neighborhood also commemorates a man who participated in the brutal practice. “If you want to hide the truth in Philadelphia, you might as well tear down the whole city, because it was built on the blood of my people,” Shaw said.
On Feb. 16, federal Judge Cynthia Rufe ruled in favor of the historic site, granting an injunction that required the National Park Service to replace the memorial’s plaques within four days. While workers replaced the glass plaques, the Trump administration appealed the injunction, essentially freezing the restoration work until the 3rd Circuit made its decision.
As reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer , in April, the federal government posted online a series of altered panels that tone down mentions of slavery at the site. On the official federal President’s House Site website , a series of new renderings mention, for example, that Washington’s slaves “experienced a greater modicum of autonomy than elsewhere in the South.” Information about the history of the memorial, including the National Park Service’s reluctance to create it, is elided. While both the city and ATAC have said they will continue to fight, neither has spoken in detail about what that might entail. However, the controversy and the court battle has created opportunities to share the original exhibit text and the history of the site with interested visitors. According to CNN , on a recent June day, tourists and locals could be found at the President’s House, reading binders full of the missing panel text and talking with volunteers. A fight for the truth
At the heart of the President’s House site is a cramped wooden chamber that served as the living quarters for those enslaved by Washington. Adorning the walls is a bird representing the African principle of Sankofa: Its feet face forward, while its head turns to look behind. It represents the concept that to move forward, we must look back. For ATAC member Mijuel K. Johnson, highlighting Philadelphia’s history of slavery is essential to understanding the tensions inherent in the United States project. “We have the history of being a country founded on ideals that didn’t always match, that didn’t and still don’t always match our reality,” Johnson reflected in an interview. “The ideals of liberty, equality, justice and humanity, but the reality of its founding was on enslavement and dispossession and genocide of Indigenous peoples. So we have to reckon with that history, that both things can be true at the same time.”
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