The panels recently removed from the President’s House in Philadelphia tell the history of slavery in the the first years of the United States of America through both the stories of individual enslaved people and descriptions of the brutal institution.
Among the exhibits the National Park Service took down last month at the Independence National Historical Park was a panel describing George Washington’s decision to send his enslaved cook’s son to the Mount Vernon plantation in Virginia. The then-president feared the son and other slaves would gain their freedom while living in Pennsylvania, a state that had adopted a law allowing enslaved people to gain their freedom over time.
Another display told the history of the transatlantic slave trade more broadly, while a separate panel abruptly torn down by park employees on the afternoon of Jan. 22 described the “intentional brutality” of periodic violence that slave owners used to “break” enslaved populations.
Photos of the exhibits were submitted Friday to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where a federal judge is weighing the city of Philadelphia’s lawsuit to reinstate the installation.
