Activists vow to protect display on George Washington's ties to slavery

Source: USA Today

Sept. 24, 2024, 6:03 a.m. ET


PHILADELPHIA — Michael Coard is a criminal defense lawyer, and he peppers his thoughts about The President's House with a familiar courtroom phrase. "We need to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," he said more than once while discussing the displays at The President's House, steps away from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in Philadelphia's historic district.

The truth on display at The President's House is that George Washington, the general who led the fight for U.S. independence, a Founding Father and the first President, owned human beings, profited off their unpaid labor, and, when one of them made a break for freedom, tried for years to recapture them. And while he was living in Philadelphia, then the nation's capital, Washington kept enslaved people at the house where he resided.

Meanwhile, other displays that tell the stories of enslaved people have come under scrutiny by the Trump Administration as part of its review of monuments, memorials and museum displays that it says may "inappropriately disparage Americans." Trump and some conservatives believe historical sites and museums focus too much on painful elements of the United States' past, including slavery, displacement and killings of Native Americans, racism and discrimination. The President has said that focus provides "a false reconstruction of American history," and that federally funded sites should instead promote patriotism and the idea of American exceptionalism.

For now, all of the displays at The President's House remain in place, with no imminent plans to remove or alter them, Coard said. But he and a group of activists, preservationists and others, aware of controversies at sites including the Smithsonian and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, are still making backup plans, he told USA TODAY.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/09/24/activists-plan-to-protect-presidents-house/86202084007/

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Attorney Michael Coard spent YEARS on the efforts to get that display going. It started with the excavation of the approximate location of the house almost 20 years ago (that had other buildings there over the centuries before they cleared everything to create "Independence Mall" ahead of the bicentennial). Back during the 19th & early-mid-20th centuries, there were retail stores at the location including a hardware store!



When they dig anywhere around that area of the Olde City neighborhood of Philly, they are required to do an archeological examination before further work.



When they discovered what was left of the original foundation of the house, with passageways clearly visible, that set the stage for what is there now. During the examinations, that site got more curious tourists and visitors than Independence Hall, which was just a block back from there, so they had erected the barriers around it and even a viewing platform/gazebo, so that tourists could watch.





I used to drive back and forth to work by there everyday and it was always mobbed. They then decided to put some kind of plexiglass covering over much of the site to preserve it through winter (and continue to let tourists view what was there) as plans on what to do with that corner location were underway. A couple portions of the "below street level" parts of the house remain as part of the exhibit under plexiglass.





Some more here -

The President's House in Philadelphia exhibits the paradox of liberty and slavery

Memory and Truth: Excavating “Liberty” at the President’s House

The Archeology of Freedom and Slavery: Excavations at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia

The President's House in Philadelphia: The Rediscovery of a Lost Landmark