PHILADELPHIA – Here is something you probably didn't learn about George Washington in elementary school. When he lived in Philadelphia – back when the city was the temporary capital of the U.S. – America's first president kept nine enslaved people in his house.
A law called the Gradual Abolition Act said if those people remained in Pennsylvania for six straight months, they could petition for their freedom.
But the president made sure they never had that chance.
"Washington would take the enslaved people and rotate them out of Philadelphia, sometimes just driving over in a carriage to New Jersey," says Michelle Flamer, a retired attorney with the city of Philadelphia.
That is just one of the stories about Washington on exhibit here at the President's House, which is a short walk from Independence Hall. Flamer, as well as historians and community activists, recently held a rally to defend the exhibit, which is managed by the National Park Service.
Last March, the Trump administration ordered the Department of the Interior to examine any display material at more than 400 sites around the country, which includes recreation areas and battlefields. Among their jobs: identify any signs, markers, books or monuments that "inappropriately disparage Americans, past or living."
In his executive order, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, President Trump said he was trying to counteract what he sees as a decade-long effort to rewrite the nation's history based on left-wing ideology. In a related order in May, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said national park signs should "focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people."
A national park staff member tells NPR that their employees have reported more than a thousand items for review. The Department of the Interior set Sept. 17 as a deadline to remove any content that does not comply with the order. Park service workers say many cases remain unresolved. The staffer, as well as others who spoke to NPR, requested anonymity for fear the department would fire them for speaking out.
At the President's House, staff have flagged at least 13 display panels they say may need revision, according to text obtained by NPR. They include a panel that calls Washington's rotation of people in order to keep them enslaved as "profoundly disturbing."
Park employees also flagged a panel that reads: "As the new federal government embraced the lofty concept of liberty, slavery in the President's House ... mocked the nation's pretense to be a beacon of liberty."
Michelle Flamer and others who pushed to create the exhibit in 2010 fear the administration will edit or remove some panels.
"This is truth; it's American history," Flamer tells NPR. "There's good and there's bad and it's just like life itself."
Michael Coard, a Philadelphia attorney, is a leader of Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, an organization of Black historians, religious leaders and community activists, which held the Sept. 13 rally to oppose potential changes to the site. The group formed with the goal of turning part of the President's House site into a slavery memorial.
Coard said there was a debate within the park service at the time over how to portray Washington's years here. Coard and others thought the focus should be on slavery.
"Our argument was that George Washington has more monuments and memorials in America than any other American," said Coard, addressing dozens of supporters at the rally. "So if George Washington got all that attention then, we need to get some attention now."
Michael Lewis, who teaches architecture at Williams College and has written about the President's House, takes a more nuanced view of the exhibit. Lewis supports highlighting Washington's treatment of his enslaved workers. He called the president's rotating them out of Pennsylvania, "cold-blooded."
But he also says he's disappointed with the exhibit overall, because he thinks it fails to highlight the positive things the president did when he lived in Philadelphia. Among other things, Lewis cites the democratic example George Washington set for leaders around the world by deciding to step down after two terms as president.
"That's an extraordinary story in world history," says Lewis. "It's virtually absent there."
Lewis supports the Trump administration's review of signs around the country and would like to see a national conversation about them. But, he adds: "I'm afraid Donald Trump might not be the best vessel for that, alas."
In fact, some Americans have already weighed in on the topic. Over the summer, the park service encouraged visitors to use QR codes placed in public areas to flag signs with a negative take on American historical figures. NPR obtained a list containing more than 2,200 comments submitted by the public between June and July.
Only a tiny percentage were critical of panels or signs. Alan Spears, senior director of cultural resources at the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group, says the lack of complaints shows most people aren't bothered by how the parks present American history.
"If I can take Jack Nicholson's phrase from A Few Good Men and turn it around on them," Spears says, "We can handle the truth."
Angela Val, the CEO of Visit Philadelphia, the city's tourism marketing organization, expects the administration to edit or remove panels from the President's House site. If that happens, Val says her organization will try to find a private location nearby to display the banned material. She points out that banning information can sometimes boomerang and bring it more attention.
"The moment you tell somebody they can't do something or can't read something," Val says, they "immediately want to do it."
Copyright 2025 NPR
