The slavery exhibits at the President's House are beginning to be restored by the National Park Service

Fallon Roth, Maggie Prosser and Abraham Gutman, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Feb 19, 2026

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

Almost a month after abruptly dismantling exhibits about slavery from the President’s House, National Park Service employees began reinstalling the panels late morning on Thursday ahead of a court-imposed deadline.

Just before 11 a.m. a four Park Service employees carted glass panels from a white van to a barricaded area at the site. They screwed each panel back into the brick.

The restoration is the latest development in the city and community stakeholders’ fight to preserve the President’s House after President Donald Trump’s administration ordered the removal of educational panels from the exhibit on Independence Mall last month.

U.S District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe sided with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration on Monday, issuing an injunction ordering the government to “immediately” restore the site to its normal condition by Friday.

Eleven panels have been restored as of noon Thursday, with employees continuing to work.

Shortly before noon, Parker arrived to the scene taking in the newly reinstalled exhibits. She shook hands with and thanked the Park Service employees.

“It’s our honor,” an employee told the mayor.

Parker did not take questions from the media.

Michael Coard, an attorney and leader of Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, which helped lead the President’s House, called Thursday’s reinstallation a “huge victory” for stakeholders’ weeks of advocacy both in court and around the site itself.

“We had people doing something at least every single day since the vandalism took place on January 22, and we’ve had the attorneys in court, so it’s a great day, but the battle is not over,” Coard said.

On Wednesday, several employees from Independence National Historical Park placed metal barriers around the brick walls where panels used to be displayed near the open-air exhibit’s Market Street entrance. One employee told an Inquirer reporter that the barriers were in place so employees could clean the area.

Prior to being reinstalled Thursday, exhibits were being stored in a Park Service storage facility adjacent to the National Constitution Center.

Thursday’s reinstallation is a moment that Philadelphians, who have been tirelessly fighting to protect the President’s House, have been waiting for.

Last month, on Jan. 22, when park employees took crowbars and wrenches to the President’s House, which memorializes the nine people George Washington enslaved at his Philadelphia residence, the City of Philadelphia filed a suit against members of the Trump administration and community stakeholders took action to preserve the memory of the site.

Rufe, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a blistering 40-page opinion in which she compared the federal government arguments justifying the removal of the interpretive panels to the dystopian Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s 1984 novel.

The opinion argued that it is urgent that the full exhibit be shown to the public. When the federal government didn’t comply 48 hours later, the judge set a deadline of 5 p.m. on Friday for the Department of Interior and the National Park Service to fulfill her order.

The Trump administration asked Rufe on Wednesday night for a stay on the injunction while their appeal is pending in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

The motion says that enforcement of the order makes Philadelphia a “backseat driver holding veto power” in all decisions related to Independence Hall National Park. And by forcing the government to restore the slavery panels, the court “compels the Government to convey a message that it has chosen not to convey,” the motion says.

Rufe didn’t rule on the stay as of midday Thursday, and gave the city until 4 p.m. to make its case against it. But neither the federal government’s appeal to a higher court or the request for stay by themselves pause Rufe’s order.

Complying with the order could complicate the federal government’s argument that restoring the panel inflicts irreparable harm as they have “turned around and done what they said they couldn’t do,” said Marsha Levick, a visiting chair at the Temple University School of Law.

Coard, of Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, said Thursday’s development epitomizes the group’s name. He said his coalition’s advocacy for the President’s House stands on the shoulders of activism from ancestors during the Civil Rights Movement.

“We took that baton from them and we ran with it,” Coard said. “And the interesting thing about taking that baton is that this track was not as difficult for us. They had more obstacles on their track. We have fewer because they cleared it for us.”

________