Philadelphia Sues Over Removal of Slavery Exhibit

President Trump likely has not read George Orwell who warned us: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Trump wants to control the American narrative. So on his directive, the National Park Service is acting like it’s 1984.

On January 22, 2026 – without notice to the City of Philadelphia – the National Park Service unilaterally removed artwork and interpretive panels from the President’s House Site that “tells the story of the paradox of liberty and enslavement in one home – and in a nation.” The story reflects decades of scholarly research about the nine enslaved Africans who were brought by President George Washington from Mount Vernon to work in the executive mansion.

The panels and artwork were unceremoniously tossed in the back of a pickup truck and taken to a “secure location.”

Before the signs were unloaded in the still undisclosed “secure location,” the City of Philadelphia filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The City contends that the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service violated a 2006 cooperative agreement that “through a series of amendments, detailed the design of the President’s House Project as well as the rights and responsibilities of the parties.” According to the complaint, “the City has an equal right with the NPS under these agreements to approve the final design of the President’s House Project.”

The City asks the Court to declare that the Defendants’ removal of the artwork and interpretive signs violates the Administrative Procedure Act. The City argues the Defendants “have provided no explanation at all for their removal of the historical, educational displays at the President’s House site, let alone a reasoned one.”

The City maintains “there is no statutory or other authority for the Secretary to remove and destroy [National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom] sites after designation and doing so runs counter to the express purpose of the Administrative Procedure Act.”

The bottom line: The City seeks “An order restoring the President’s House Site to its status as of January 21, 2026.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro posted on X that “Donald Trump will take any opportunity to rewrite and whitewash our history. But he picked the wrong city — and he sure as hell picked the wrong Commonwealth. We learn from our history in Pennsylvania, even when it’s painful.”

Shapiro said he will file an amicus brief in support of the City’s lawsuit.

Facts are stubborn things. On May 23, 1796, Frederick Kitt, steward of the presidential household, placed an ad in the Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser offering a ten dollar reward “to any person who will bring [Oney Judge] home. Oney “ABSCONDED from the household of the President of the United States” on May 21, 1796.

The National Park Service designated the President’s House a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site in 2022.

Trump’s attempt to alter the facts and whitewash the history of the President’s House will not stand.

76 Place Dreams and Nightmares

One year ago this week, the billionaire owners of the Philadelphia 76ers pulled the rug out from under Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and City Council. Their proposal to construct a basketball arena atop SEPTA’s Jefferson Station was a dream for the billionaires and a nightmare for everyone else.

A year later, we don’t have answers about this debacle. The City is still fighting release of documents that I requested from the previous administration.

SEPTA was twice ordered to turn over records. Rather than comply with the orders, the cash-strapped agency continued to pay outside counsel to fight disclosure. With their back against the wall, SEPTA claimed the records were deleted.

In this new year, I will submit new RTKL requests for 76 Place records for the period of January 1, 2024 to January 14, 2025. I will keep on pushing until we get answers to how the billionaires hijacked the public policymaking process.

Winter of Discontent at Kennedy Center

Donald Trump’s first year back in the White House was an annus horribilis. As the curtain was falling on 2025, President Trump’s handpicked Board of Trustees slapped his name on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The Trump-stacked board changed the bylaws to allow only his sycophants to vote on the name change. Trump’s name on the building desecrates the living memorial to the 35th President of the United States.

By law, “no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.” The illegal renaming prompted jazz drummer and vibraphonist Chuck Redd to cancel his Christmas Eve concert.

In a letter to Redd, Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell wrote this is “your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt.”

Redd should call Grenell’s bluff. He would not have to worry about legal fees. Requests for donations to his legal defense fund would break the internet. It’s laughable to think the Kennedy Center would seek $1 million in damages for the cancellation of a free concert. There were no ticket sales; there were reservations. Through the discovery process, Redd would gain access to Board minutes and financial records.

Courage is contagious. Fall of Freedom is giving way to Winter of Discontent at the Kennedy Center. Shortly after Trump installed himself as chairman, “Hamilton” canceled its 2026 run at the storied art and culture institution.

The Cookers cancelled their New Year’s Eve concerts. The band’s drummer, Billy Hart, told the New York Times “the center’s name change had ‘evidently’ played a role” in the cancellation.

In canceling their gigs, Redd, the Cookers and the cast of “Hamilton” are following in the footsteps of the legendary citizen artists featured in the Kennedy Center’s immersive exhibit, “Art and Ideals.”

At the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. observed that jazz musicians were the vanguard of the Civil Rights Movement. In a statement posted on their website, the Cookers said:

Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice. Some of us have been making this music for many decades, and that history still shapes us. We are not turning away from our audience, and do want to make sure that when we do return to the bandstand, the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it.

NEA Jazz Master Billy Taylor was artistic director at the Kennedy Center from 1994 until his death in 2010. Dr. Taylor’s composition, “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,” was an unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement.

Redd’s canceled concert was to be held on the Millennium Stage. The Billy Taylor Trio inaugurated the Millennium Stage on March 1, 1997.

As long as Trump’s name is on the wall, jazz musicians should not set foot in the building. The only jazz should be live from the archives, Billy Taylor’s Jazz at the Kennedy Center (here and here).

UPDATE: Jazz trumpeter and violinist Wayne Tucker canceled his January 22, 2026 concert which was scheduled for the Millennium Stage.

When you click on the event link, this pops up.

Another one bites the dust.