The city of Philadelphia sued the Interior Department and the acting director of the National Park Service on Thursday over reports that slavery exhibits were being dismantled in the city’s historic district.
The suit, filed in federal court, seeks a preliminary injunction to restore the exhibits at the President’s House Site, part of Independence National Historical Park.
The lawsuit says that “the National Park Service has removed artwork and informational displays at the President’s House site referencing slavery, presumably pursuant to the mandate” of Executive Order No. 14253, which President Donald Trump signed in March.
The city said in the suit that it learned Thursday that the educational panels that referred to slavery had been removed.
“Removing the exhibits is an effort to whitewash American history,” Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson said in a statement Thursday. “History cannot be erased simply because it is uncomfortable. Removing items from the President’s House merely changes the landscape, not the historical record.”
NBC Philadelphia aired video Thursday that shows people with crowbars taking down panels, one of which reads “The Dirty Business of Slavery.”
The suit says the city was given no notice about the change to the President’s House.
It calls the removal of the displays “arbitrary and capricious.”
“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 lawsuit says.
The Interior Department and the National Park Service did not immediately respond to NBC News’ requests for comment late Thursday.
In a statement to The Washington Post, Interior Department spokesperson Elizabeth Peace said action was taken after a review.
“The President has directed federal agencies to review interpretive materials to ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values,” Peace said. “Following completion of the required review, the National Park Service is now taking action to remove or revise interpretive materials in accordance with the Order.”
Trump’s executive order directs the Interior Department in its materials not to include “descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times).”
It instructs the department, which oversees the National Park Service, to “instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape.”
The order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” has been criticized.
The American Historical Association said it “egregiously misrepresents the work of the Smithsonian Institution,” which the executive order criticized by name.
“Historians explore the past to understand how our nation has evolved. We draw on a wide range of sources, which helps us to understand history from different angles of vision,” the group said March 31.
“Our goal is neither criticism nor celebration,” it said. “It is to understand — to increase our knowledge of — the past in ways that can help Americans to shape the future.”
The President’s House is a site where President George Washington resided in Philadelphia, and he brought slaves who were in the home, according to the lawsuit and the National Park Service’s webpage about the site. President John Adams also lived there.
The House of Representatives urged the National Park Service in 2003 to recognize the slaves there. The agency and the city entered into a cooperative agreement in 2006 to establish an exhibit about the site, the suit says.
A memorial and panels about slavery at the President’s House have been up since it opened in 2010, according to the suit.
The Black Journey, a group that conducts walking tours in Philadelphia about Black history, said removing the panels can’t erase the past.
“Just because Trump ordered the panels taken down doesn’t erase the history,” the group wrote on Facebook. “The truth still lives here.”
U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., whose district includes part of Philadelphia and the President’s House, also condemned the removal.
“Philadelphia and the entire country deserve an honest accounting of our history, and this effort to hide it is wrong,” he said in a statement.
During the Trump administration, the National Park Service has made other changes that have backtracked on previous information.
In February, before the executive order, the National Park Service website for Stonewall National Monument’s web page was changed to erase references to transgender and queer people.
The Stonewall Inn is the site of a milestone in the fight for gay rights, recognition and the fight to end persecution by authorities.
