May is Preservation Month, an annual celebration dedicated to promoting the importance of preserving historic places and cultural heritage. This year’s theme, “all people are created equal,” focuses on places that tell the full American story.
As the nation marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, preservation demands urgency, honesty, and accountability. The words “all people are created equal” did not include Black people. The built environment carries the evidence of that contradiction.
At its core, historic preservation is about storytelling. At my upcoming walking tour, Hercules Posey’s Philadelphia, we will visit historic landmarks to tell the story of President George Washington’s enslaved chief cook. Places like Independence Hall, Congress Hall, Old City Hall and Christ Church.
We will stop at sites that hold Hercules’ story. Sites such as Ricketts Circus and the High Street Market. We will also stroll down the 100 block of Black Horse Alley which was added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places’ Historic Street Paving Thematic District in 1998. Some of the granite blocks date back to Hercules’ time in Philadelphia.
Walking in Hercules Posey’s Footsteps will be held on Saturday, May 16, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. The event is free but reservations are required. To reserve a spot, go here.
In a Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed, Michael Coard, founder of ATAC, wrote:
These were not restorations. They were revisions — an attempt to soften and sanitize George Washington’s deep involvement in slavery, recasting a man who enslaved African men, women, and children from the age of 11 until his death as someone merely “uncomfortable” with the institution. They even suggest the enslaved in Philadelphia experienced a “modicum of autonomy.”
Let’s be clear: There is no autonomy in enslavement.
If Washington felt “discomfort,” imagine the lived reality of the 316 African descendants he held in bondage. If NPS believes “autonomy” applies to human beings in chains, then it fundamentally misunderstands the brutality of slavery.
From his first breath at Pope’s Creek to his last breath at Mount Vernon, Washington was surrounded by enslaved people. Throughout his life, he was involved with the institution of slavery. While his views on slavery changed over time, Washington’s private musings are trumped by his public actions.
Fact is, Washington did not emancipate an enslaved person during his lifetime.
Washington “owned” outright 123 Black people. His personal servant, William “Billy” Lee, was the only one given “immediate freedom” upon Washington’s death. The remaining 122 enslaved people were to be freed upon the death of Martha Washington.
Washington owned, bought, sold, rented and bargained for Black people. He pursued those who dared to seek their freedom. From 1771 to his death in 1799, he pursued freedom seekers including Harry, Hercules Posey and Ona Judge.
I am nominating President Washington’s enslaved chief cook, Hercules Posey, for a Pennsylvania historical marker. I will submit the nomination on May 15, 2026, the 214th anniversary of his death.
On Saturday, May 16, 2026, I will lead a walking tour of people, places and events in Hercules Posey’s Philadelphia. To join us, send your name and email address to phlwatchdog@gmail.com.
This weekend, I led a teach-in at the President’s House Site organized by the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides.
There was a steady stream of visitors to the site. Most were aware that the National Park Service removed the interpretive signs and were ordered to reinstall them. However, they were surprised the President’s House Site has not been restored to its physical status as of January 21, 2026 as ordered by U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe.
The Department of the Interior appealed Judge Rufe’s order to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Full restoration of the site was paused by Judge Thomas M. Hardiman. As the lawsuit, City of Philadelphia v. Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior, et al., moves through the federal courts, the President’s House Site will remain partially restored.
On the two-month anniversary of the removal of the interpretive panels, CBS Sunday Morning aired a report, “Signs of the times: Removing stories of America’s past from our national parks.”
Jim Axelrod interviewed Alan Spears, Senior Director for Cultural Resources at the National Parks Conservation Association.
Spears has a clear message for those who cannot handle the truth about the “nuanced nature of our history”:
If you are thinking about visiting a national park, if you don’t want to tackle any of these large issues that make you think critically about race and slavery, and gender and other things like that, there are hundreds of thousands of places in the United States where you can go. Knock yourself out at Six Flags but don’t ruin it for the rest of us who have come to rely on national parks as places for that learning.
We want to maintain their ability, unimpaired, to be able to talk about the full scope of our history – wonder, warts and all.
President Trump wants to erase the fact-based history told at the President’s House Site. Removal of the interpretive panels is a “sign o’ the times.”
The fight to save the President’s House has brought renewed attention to the nine Africans enslaved by President George Washington in the shadow of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.
Washington’s enslaved cook, Hercules Posey, the nation’s first celebrity chef, managed the kitchen at the President’s House. He became an ancestor on May 15, 1812. To mark the occasion, I will submit my nomination of Hercules for a Pennsylvania historical marker on May 15, 2026.
Before Hercules, there was Hannah Archer Hill (1721-1826). Born into slavery, Hannah was General George Washington’s enslaved personal cook during the grueling winter at Valley Forge.
Hannah and her husband, Isaac, purchased their freedom in 1778. She continued to work for General Washington as a salaried cook through all of his campaigns for the next six and a half years. For six months, her services were lent to the Marquis de Lafayette, who led troops under the command of General Washington.
The position of personal cook to the Commander-in-Chief required culinary skills as well as unwavering loyalty due to the threat of assassination by poisoning.
Following the Revolutionary War, Hannah and Issac made Philadelphia their home where she lived until her death at age 105.
In 2015, Hannah was honored for her contributions during the Revolutionary War. She was recognized as a Patriot by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). A plaque was installed on her headstone in Historic Eden Cemetery. A DAR chapter was named in her honor.
During his triumphal tour of America, the Marquis de Lafayette stopped in Philadelphia in September 1824. Lafayette’s whirlwind of events included a three-mile-long welcoming parade, a temporary arch, and a Grand Ball where Francis “Frank” Johnson, a forefather of jazz, performed his composition, General La Fayette Bugle Waltz.
Lafayette made time to visit Hannah. When he learned that “Aunt Hannah” was behind on her ground rent, Lafayette sent her money to pay off her debt. The site of Hannah’s residence is a stop on my walking tour, Hercules Posey’s Philadelphia.
To be added to the mailing list for the walking tour, send your name and email address to phlwatchdog@gmail.com.
The recent Executive Order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” represents a disturbing attack on core institutions and the public presentation of history, and indeed on historians and history itself. The directive seeks to limit the ways in which history is taught to the public and understood, especially by discouraging the incorporation of perspectives that might challenge simplified, one-dimensional, and biased views of American history. The implications of this order are far-reaching and challenge the historian’s profession to its very core. It proposes to rewrite history to reflect a glorified narrative that downplays or disappears elements of America’s history—slavery, segregation, discrimination, division—while suppressing the voices of historically excluded groups.
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. John Cole’s editorial cartoon, published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, speaks volumes about President Trump’s efforts to censor uncomfortable truths about the paradox of slavery and freedom at the President’s House.
In her order, U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe directed the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service to restore the President’s House Site to its physical status on January 21, 2026.
The Defendants appealed Judge Rufe’s order. Restoration of the President’s House was paused by Judge Thomas M. Hardiman of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The federal government does not have to fully restore the President’s House Site for the duration of the appeal. Judge Hardiman ordered the federal government to preserve the slavery memorial’s physical status on February 20, 2026.
Congressman Brendan F. Boyle has introduced legislation to permanently restore the President’s House Site. The Protecting American History Act requires the National Park Service to restore the federal slavery memorial to its physical status on January 21, 2026.
Congressman Boyle said:
The Trump administration’s decision to remove slavery-related exhibits at Independence National Historical Park was wrong. We are the United States of America. We don’t censor our history, and I am not going to allow the Trump administration to start censoring our nation’s history. So federal legislation is clearly needed.
Rep. Boyle’s bill would prohibit any future changes of any kind at Independence National Historical Park, which includes the President’s House Site, without prior approval from Congress. Reps. Dwight Evans and Mary Gay Scanlon are lead co-sponsors of the legislation.
In the wake of U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe’s order to restore the President’s House Site to its physical status as of January 21, 2026, the National Park Service began to reinstall the interpretive panels that were yanked from the walls.
The deadline to restore the President’s House Site was February 20, 2026 at 5:00 PM. The Department of the Interior and the National Park Service appealed Judge Rufe’s order to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
With an hour to go before the 5:00 PM deadline, Judge Thomas M. Hardiman granted a stay of execution. The federal government does not have to fully restore the President’s House Site for the duration of the appeal. Judge Hardiman ordered the federal government to preserve the slavery memorial’s physical status as of February 20, 2026.
The federal government cannot remove the 16 interpretive glass panels that were reinstalled or turn off the four functioning video monitors (the fifth monitor was nonfunctional prior to January 21, 2026). So, for the foreseeable future, the President’s House Site will be a mashup of the original glass panels and signs of creative resistance.
I spent the first day of Black History Month at the President’s House Site. Twenty days later, I was back at the slavery memorial leading a Truth in History Teach-In organized by the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides. I shared stories about the nine Black enslaved people who worked and lived in the shadow of the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. I told the history that President Trump wants to whitewash, including Ona Judge who “absconded from the household of the President of the United States” on May 21, 1796.
Nine months later, President Washington’s enslaved chef, Hercules Posey, self-emancipated from Mount Vernon on February 22, 1797, Washington’s 65th birthday.
I am nominating Hercules Posey, the nation’s first celebrity chef, for a Pennsylvania historical marker. If the nomination is approved, Hercules will join Ona whose marker was dedicated in 2023.
Invoking President Trump’s Executive Order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” the National Park Service executed “a jarring alteration to the integrity of the [President’s House] site” on January 22, 2026.
On Washington’s Birthday, better known as Presidents’ Day, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe rebuked President Trump’s claim to “the truth.” In her opinion granting the City of Philadelphia’s motion for a preliminary injunction, Judge Rufe invoked George Orwell:
And yet, in its argument, the government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove and hide historical accounts on taxpayer and local government-funded monuments within its control. Its claims in this regard echo Big Brother’s domain in Orwell’s 1984, where:
The largest section of the [government’s] Records Department . . . consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction. A number of the Times [a newspaper] which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophesies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it. Books, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration had been made. Even the written instructions [for workers in the Records Department] . . . never stated or implied that an act of forgery was to be committed; always the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy.
Much to his dismay, President Trump does not have the authority to dictate “the truth”:
The government here likewise asserts truth is no longer self-evident, but rather the property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and delegees, at his whim to be scraped clean, hidden, or overwritten. And why? Solely because, as Defendants state, it has the power.
Judge Rufe made it clear that she’s not telling the government what message to convey; rather, whatever message is conveyed at the President’s House Site must be done in consultation with the City:
The government can convey a different message without restraint elsewhere if it so pleases, but it cannot do so to the President’s House until it follows the law and consults with the City.
Judge Rufe ordered the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service to restore the President’s House Site to its physical status as of January 21, 2026 and “reinstall all panels, displays, and video exhibits that were previously in place.”
When Judge Rufe made a site visit, she saw that the Park Service cleared the snow on Independence Mall and left the President’s House Site covered in snow and ice.
Judge Rufe ordered the Defendants “to provide immediate, continuing, and proper maintenance to the Site, its exhibits, grounds [emphasis added], artifacts, video monitors, and recordings which SHALL remain operable.”
Dr. Carter G. Woodson launched Negro History Week in 1926 to honor African American contributions that were “overlooked, ignored, and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks and the teachers who use them.” February was chosen because Black Americans already celebrated the birthdays of the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and the Great Orator Frederick Douglass (February 14).
One hundred years ago, to help highlight these achievements, Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History. We are grateful to him today for his initiative, and we are richer for the work of his organization.
Freedom and the recognition of individual rights are what our Revolution was all about. They were ideals that inspired our fight for Independence: ideals that we have been striving to live up to ever since. Yet it took many years before these ideals became a reality for black citizens.
Fifty years later, President Donald Trump is sending a different message. Trump aggregates unto himself the authority to overlook, ignore and suppress Black history, and whitewash “what our Revolution was all about.”
Without notice to the City of Philadelphia, the National Park Service dismantled the President’s House Site which opened on December 15, 2010 after years of cooperation between the Park Service, the City and the public.
On the eve of Black History Month, a hearing was held (here and here) in federal district court on the City’s motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the suppression of the history of slavery. The City wants U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe to order the Defendants to restore the President’s House Site to its status as of January 21, 2026.
The Defendants claim “the National Park Service is the sole decision maker as to what is exhibited on its property.” They claim that President Trump has absolute authority to order the signs removed. The “administration issued the executive order that resulted in this action… The government gets to choose the message it wants to convey.”
Judge Rufe said “that’s a dangerous statement. That’s horrifying to listen to. [History] changes on the whim of someone in charge? Sorry. That’s not what we elected anybody for.”
Judge Rufe plans to inspect the displays removed from the President’s House. She also will visit the site. When she does, she will see the Park Service cleared the snow on Independence Mall and left the President’s House Site covered in snow and ice.
Judge Rufe is likely to issue her ruling in March 2026.
In the meantime, I spent the first day of Black History Month at the President’s House Site. I posted the “runaway slave” ad that Frederick Kitt, steward of the presidential household, placed in the Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser offering a ten-dollar reward for the return of Oney Judge who “absconded from the household of the President of the United States.”
It was heartwarming to see the steady stream of visitors in the bitter cold and the creative forms of resistance.
As soon as the weather breaks, I plan to reserve People’s Plaza, the public square near the President’s House Site where protesting is allowed. I will set up my boombox and play protest songs. I expect the Park Service will “say my music’s too loud.”
UPDATE: On February 2, 2026, Judge Cynthia M. Rufe conducted a visual inspection of the signs removed from the President’s House Site by the National Park Service. Thirty-four panels were removed, some of which “exhibited damage.” The panels are stored in a secure location at the National Constitution Center.
“The government is ORDERED to continue to securely store all removed panels and to mitigate any further deterioration or damage.”
With respect to the Memorial, the enclosed space near the entrance to the Liberty Bell Center that is in the footprint of President Washington’s slave quarters, “no further removal and/or destruction of the President’s House site will be permitted until further order of the Court.”
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.
The federal government shutdown has paused the whitewashing of American history prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior’s order implementing President Trump’s Executive Order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” It is insane to believe that “truth” is on the side of Trump and his monochromatic and chaotic administration.
The Save Our Signs project is a crowdsourced archive dedicated to documenting and preserving signs, exhibits and plaques at National Park Service sites. SOS has launched an open-access, searchable digital archive of photographs of interpretive signs taken by visitors to National Park Service sites. As of October 13, 2025, the SOS Archive has over 10,000 photos.
In a statement, Jenny McBurney, Government Publications Librarian at the University of Minnesota and SOS co-founder, said:
I’m so excited to share this collaborative photo collection with the public. As librarians, our goal is to preserve the knowledge and stories told in these signs. We want to put the signs back in the people’s hands. We are so grateful for all the people who have contributed their time and energy to this project. The outpouring of support has been so heartening. We hope the launch of this archive is a way for people to see all their work come together.
[…]
The SOS Archive includes an online collection of the crowdsourced photos organized by NPS site, and a spreadsheet that houses volunteer-provided details for each individual photo submission. In addition to the name of the park, this includes the date that the photo was taken, and may include the title of the sign, if it was submitted by the volunteer.
SOS is still collecting photos. To add your photos, go here.
PHL Watchdog 