Trump Admin Has Until Friday To Restore Slavery Exhibit
Judge Gives Trump Administration Until Friday To Restore Slavery Exhibit
The Trump administration has spent much of the last year trying to rewrite American history to fit a more whitewashed narrative. One of the most notable ways they’ve gone about this effort is by making changes at national museums and parks, most recently removing an exhibit about the slaves owned by George Washington at the President’s House in Philadelphia. That effort has been stifled after a judge gave the Trump administration a Friday deadline to restore the exhibit.
According to AP, Senior U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe issued the order on Wednesday, even as the Trump administration appeals her ruling on Monday ordering the exhibit to be restored. The Trump administration is arguing that it alone can decide what stories are told at monuments under the care of the National Park Service. Rufe, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, pushed back against that assertion and cited George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 in her ruling.
“As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims — to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts,” Rufe wrote. “It does not.”
National Park Service workers abruptly began removing the exhibit last month with no prior warning, which led to the city of Philadelphia filing a lawsuit against the service. Rufe was sharp in her critique of the Trump administration’s efforts to change history to serve their personal narratives.
“If the President’s House is left dismembered throughout this dispute, so too is the history it recounts,” Rufe wrote in the 40-page opinion. “Worse yet, the potential of having the exhibits replaced by an alternative script — a plausible assumption at this time — would be an even more permanent rejection of the site’s historical integrity, and irreparable.”
It should come as no surprise that the Trump administration made this move, as more people are expected to visit the President’s House during America’s 250th anniversary. Last year, President Donald Trump issued the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order, which has largely been used to remove Black, Native American, and LGBTQ history from national monuments.
There were already concerns mounting early last year over exhibit removals from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and those concerns have only grown in the months since. Earlier this month, the National Park Service made a similar move when it removed the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument, a site that’s massively important in both LGBTQ and Black history. Several LGBTQ advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit against the Interior Department over the removal of the Pride flag.
A spokesperson for the Interior Department said they intended to install a different exhibit, “providing a fuller account of the history of slavery at Independence Hall.” Given the moves they’ve made over the last year, I’m inclined to believe that the new exhibit wouldn’t give a “fuller” account as much as completely downplay the role slavery played in American history.
SEE ALSO:
Trump Administration Doesn’t Want Us To Remember That George Washington Enslaved Black People
Judge: Trump Administration Must Restore Slavery Exhibit In Philadelphia
Judge Gives Trump Administration Until Friday To Restore Slavery Exhibit was originally published on newsone.com
