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Third Circuit Clears Interior to Replace President’s House Slavery Panels

The ruling hands the Department of the Interior power to install revised displays and raises questions about federal control of historical interpretation ahead of the nation’s 250th celebration.

Tour guide Mijuel Johnson points to the names of enslaved people etched into the President’s House exhibit near a removed panel.
Protest signs are displayed at the President’s House in Philadelphia on January 23, the day after the National Park Service removed a long-standing exhibit on slavery from the location. The names of nine enslaved people who once worked in the house are engraved on one side of the site.
Tour guide Mijuel Johnson sits for a portrait in the President’s House, which is seen missing several original exhibit panels.
Workers from the National Park Service reinstall a slavery exhibit at a historic site in Philadelphia following a judge's order to reinstall it as seen on February 19.

Overview

  • Federal appeals judges unanimously ruled on June 18 that the Department of the Interior may put up revised exhibit panels at the President’s House and reversed a district judge’s earlier order to restore the original displays.
  • Park crews had dismantled the long-standing slavery panels in January, and a February district court ordered their return before the appeals court halted that restoration.
  • The Third Circuit opinion said the proposed replacement text “acknowledge[s] the evil of slavery” and tells the story of the nine people George Washington held in his Philadelphia household, though advocates say the new panels omit key facts and soften Washington’s role.
  • Original panels remain physically removed and local volunteers and institutions have taped photos and provided binders of the removed text for visitors while Philadelphia officials and advocacy groups promise further legal challenges including possible full-court or Supreme Court review.
  • Reporting shows related, quieter edits at Independence Hall and the Second Bank, and the dispute tests whether removals are reviewable agency action or unreviewable curatorial choice with wide implications for how public sites present slavery and U.S. history.