The President’s House Exhibit, formally titled “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,” includes multimedia displays and detailed accounts of individuals such as Ona Judge, who escaped to freedom. Panels such as “The Dirty Business of Slavery,” which describe the economics and human cost of bondage, are now targeted for removal under the administration’s order. Community leaders warn that the directive is designed to sanitize history rather than confront it. “Black History is American history, and we won’t be silenced,” said Rev. Carolyn C. Cavaness of Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, speaking to supporters at Saturday’s rally.
In March, Trump signed an executive order claiming the Smithsonian Institution was being influenced by a “divisive, race-centered ideology.” The order specifically named the National Museum of African American History and Culture, once praised by Trump early in his first term, as “oppressive.” It also empowered Vice President JD Vance to review Smithsonian programming and remove what the president has called “improper ideology.” Historians and curators say the move represents a direct attempt to censor scholarship and erase evidence of Systemic Racism.
Other federal agencies have already scrambled to comply. Earlier this year, the National Park Service briefly altered its Underground Railroad webpage to minimize the role of Harriet Tubman before restoring it under public pressure. The Department of Defense removed, then reinstated, information about Baseball Legend Jackie Robinson’s Military Service and the Medal of Honor earned by Maj. Gen. Charles C. Rogers, one of the highest-ranking Black servicemembers in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the mural at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington was demolished in March, in what critics say was another symbolic effort to erase visible reminders of the struggle for racial justice.
Trump’s rhetoric has only sharpened. In recent weeks, he referred to museums as remnants of a “woke country” that dwell on slavery and racial injustice rather than celebrating national achievements. At a White House event, he declared that Smithsonian institutions were filled with “divisive propaganda” and threatened to cut funding if changes were not made. His remarks represented an about-face from 2017, when he called his tour of the African American History Museum “a meaningful reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance, and hatred.”
Historians warn that the shift is part of a coordinated effort to control the country’s historical narrative. Chad Williams, a Professor at Boston University, compared the administration’s approach to the “Lost Cause” ideology promoted after the Civil War, when southern states sought to glorify the Confederacy while downplaying slavery as the cause of the conflict. “It sends a very dangerous message about how the government is seeking to control this country’s narrative with a very narrow and propagandistic version of American History,” Williams told a local news outlet.
For community leaders in Philadelphia, the danger appears immediate. The President’s House Exhibit opened in 2010 after years of advocacy and archaeological work confirmed that Washington enslaved people on the site. Its panels and digital displays have since served as an educational tool for millions of visitors. “The first-time enslaved Africans were brought here, it was a ripping away of their history, a taking away of their names and their culture,” said Jo Banner, Co-Founder of the Descendants Project in Louisiana, connecting the federal order to broader patterns of erasure. “If we want our own liberation, we have to own telling our true history.”
With the approaching deadline, activists in Philadelphia are pressing for urgent meetings with the National Park Service. They say the stakes are larger than a single site, representing a test of whether Americans will allow federal power to strip away the unvarnished truth of the nation’s past. “We will not allow our history to be erased,” Rev. Cavaness told the rally.
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