PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The fate of the President’s House on Independence Mall was the subject of a hearing on Tuesday in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
The President’s House exhibit was built on the site of the first presidential residence, which housed George Washington and John Adams. Its panels and signage detailed the story of enslaved people in the home and the history of slavery in the U.S.
After completing the memorial in 2010, the city donated it to the National Park Service. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory in den Berken argued that the city turned over all rights to how the exhibit is maintained and the NPS can now do whatever it wants with the site, including — as it did in January — removing all of its interpretive panels.
Deputy City Solicitor Anne Taylor countered that the removal of the panels essentially destroys the exhibit, which causes the city irreparable harm because it has no way to tell its full history to some 1.5 million visitors expected for the 250th Independence Day.
Speaking for intervenors, including the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, attorney Cara McClellan said that the removal was arbitrary and capricious, violating the law for how federal agencies can act.
“It’s a complicated case, but the issue of documented history being removed at this critical time is what we feel is most important,” she said.
The judges asked technical and theoretical questions, giving no indication of how they were leaning, but Michael Coard, a founding member of the coalition, expressed hope. “We believe the judges are students of history and we’re confident they’ll do the right thing,” he said.
The judges didn’t say when they would rule.
NPS attorneys told the judges the exhibit could be restored in three weeks at a cost of $10,000, but new panels it has proposed could be mounted on the same timeline.
