New renderings of the President’s House exhibit on Independence Mall were revealed this week, and local historians said it waters down George Washington’s history with slavery.
Michael Coard, founder of Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, said the new displays revise
George Washington’s take on slavery, portraying him as more conflicted about it than history shows.
“It's not as bad as a crime of commission, but it's equally as bad in terms of being a crime of omission,” he said.
Eleven new panels were shared on the National Park Service’s website on Tuesday, on a page dedicated to the President’s House.
The digital renderings showed new text on American history during Washington’s presidency, including the Revolutionary War, slavery, and abolitionists in Philadelphia.
The exhibit originally shed light on the stories of nine Africans enslaved by Washington, but the new renderings shared only a few sentences about them.
Alan Wales, a New York teacher who was visiting the site with his family, shared his thoughts on the removal of the panels.
“The fact that the federal government has decided to remove essential historical information about this country is frightening,” Wales said.
He said even at first glance, the panels seemed to be missing some things.
“And even just in the brief reading of the proposed panels that I looked at, there's a lot of language that seems to minimize or lessen the impact that some of these actions that our country had on entire groups of people,” the teacher said.
In a statement to KYW, City Solicitor Renee Garcia said any change to the President’s House exhibits must be made in mutual agreement with the City. She also said the federal government did not approach the city about the proposed panels.
