Activists vow to protect display on George Washington’s ties to slavery

Phaedra Trethan, USA TODAY

The President’s House in Philadelphia educates visitors about Washington’s ties to slavery and is a memorial to the people who were enslaved.

Michael Coard is a criminal defense lawyer, and he peppers his thoughts about The President’s House with a familiar courtroom phrase.

“We need to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” he said more than once while discussing the displays at The President’s House, steps away from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in Philadelphia’s historic district.

The truth on display at The President’s House is that George Washington, the general who led the fight for U.S. independence, a Founding Father and the first President, owned human beings, profited off their unpaid labor, and, when one of them made a break for freedom, tried for years to recapture them. And while he was living in Philadelphia, then the nation’s capital, Washington kept enslaved people at the house where he resided.

Meanwhile, other displays that tell the stories of enslaved people have come under scrutiny by the Trump Administration as part of its review of monuments, memorials and museum displays that it says may “inappropriately disparage Americans.” Trump and some conservatives believe historical sites and museums focus too much on painful elements of the United States’ past, including slavery, displacement and killings of Native Americans, racism and discrimination. The President has said that focus provides “a false reconstruction of American history,” and that federally funded sites should instead promote patriotism and the idea of American exceptionalism.

For now, all of the displays at The President’s House remain in place, with no imminent plans to remove or alter them, Coard said. But he and a group of activists, preservationists and others, aware of controversies at sites including the Smithsonian and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, are still making backup plans[.]

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