Cherelle Parker said the National Park Service replaced the president’s house website panels overnight Tuesday at Independence Mall, after workers swapped out the slavery exhibit tied to George Washington and the nine enslaved people held at the site. The new display stays on slavery, but critics say it gives more room to the executive mansion and early presidency.
Michael Coard, speaking at a quickly organized press conference at the site, said, “To say that we are outraged is an understatement.” Parker said the federal government acted “under the cover of darkness” and wrote that “it understands this action is shameful, that it violates community trust.”
President's House and the panels
The panel titled “The Dirty Business of Slavery” was replaced with signage that reads “Celebrating Independence Throughout the Years.” The new exhibit says Washington signed legislation that “both upheld and limited slavery,” including the Fugitive Slave Act, which was passed by a veto-proof majority of Congress. It also keeps references to slavery and to those enslaved by Washington while he served as president in Philadelphia.
That change matters because the dispute is not about whether the site mentions slavery at all. It is about which part of the history gets the most weight at the federally owned memorial on Independence Mall, where the original panels centered the nine enslaved people held there by Washington.
Philadelphia and the court ruling
The city and activists say they will continue the legal fight to restore the original panels. A federal appeals court already said Philadelphia had no legal authority to dictate interpretive content at the memorial after it donated the site to the park service nearly two decades ago.
The practical next step is a legal one, not a public vote or a new exhibit deadline. For readers, the result is that the new panels are in place now, the protest has already moved to the site, and the fight has shifted to the courts and to the city’s response.
