Delco Joins Calls To Restore Slavery Exhibit At Independence National Park

DELAWARE COUNTY, PA — Delaware County officials have called for the restoration of slavery exhibits at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia in a joint amicus brief with Montgomery, Bucks, and Chester counties.

The brief was filed in response to the National Park Service removing the exhibits at the behest of the Trump Administration.

Trump in March 2025 signed an executive order titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity To American History" that in part reads:

"The Secretary of the Interior shall take action to ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times), and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people."

The order also accuses the Biden Administration of advancing the "corrosive ideology" of rewriting history, deepening societal deepening societal divides, and fostering a sense of national shame" by "replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth."

It specifically mentions Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia.

"The prior administration sponsored training by an organization that advocates dismantling 'Western foundations' and 'interrogating institutional racism' and pressured National Historical Park rangers that their racial identity should dictate how they convey history to visiting Americans because America is purportedly racist," the order reads.

The slavery exhibits at the park were removed in late January.

After protesters called for their reinstatement, and a judge ordered the exhibits to be safely stored following their removal, the collar counties joined the effort to restore them.

The counties’ legal filing describes their proximity to and shared history with Philadelphia, their connections to the nation’s founding, and the importance of maintaining honest and inclusive representation of history at nationally significant sites, particularly in the year of America’s 250th anniversary.

The President’s House, at 6th and Market Streets, marks the site of the nation’s executive mansion in the late 1700s, where Presidents Washington and Adams both lived and worked, along with their households.

"Delaware County is proud to stand with Philadelphia and with our neighboring counties to fight back against more unlawful and unconscionable federal overreach," Delaware County Council Chair Richard Womack. "Our history is imperfect, but it is ours, and the federal government can’t rewrite it or ignore it the moment they find it inconvenient."

The law firm Ballard Spahr LLP represented the counties on a pro bono basis.

"Attempts to erase and rewrite a nation’s history is a threat to democracy and cannot go unchecked," said Ballard Spahr’s Philadelphia Managing Partner Marcel Pratt, who previously served as Philadelphia City Solicitor. "A society that edits its history, instead of continuing to learn from it, is bound to repeat its worst mistakes."