Court agrees Trump team can rewrite slavery exhibits at Independence Park in Philadelphia

A federal appeals court gave the Trump administration permission Thursday to proceed with replacing exhibits at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia that had touched on the Founding Fathers’ attitudes and treatment of slaves.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Philadelphia, which had sued to prevent the exhibits from being taken down, and a judge who agreed with the city acted prematurely.

The three-judge panel, in a unanimous ruling, said the feds were working on updates to the panels that do talk about the founders and slavery — and they said that work must be allowed to continue.

The new panels also seem to pass legal muster, the court said.

“These new panels are full of historical context,” wrote Judge Thomas Hardiman, a George W. Bush appointee. “They acknowledge the evil of slavery, including its injustices and hypocrisies, and, by telling the story of the nine slaves that Washington kept in the President’s House, remind us of their essential humanity.”

The lower court’s order had been blocking the National Park Service from installing the new panels. Judge Hardiman said that injunction must be dissolved.

The case is one of several challenging President Trump’s attempt to shape the way government agencies — and National Park Service sites in particular — tell U.S. history.

The park service earlier this year took down a series of panels at the site in Philadelphia that memorializes events from the nation’s founding, including the creation of documents before the federal government moved to Washington.

Philadelphia had argued that it shared jurisdiction with the National Park Service over the historic site, and it said the work on the panels violated the feds’ agreement with the city.

That included a 2006 agreement specifically aimed at commemorating slave quarters built by George Washington as part of the President’s House complex, where Washington and later John Adams lived before the president’s home was shifted to the White House in Washington.

The appeals court ruled that the agreements don’t actually give Philadelphia a veto over the historical exhibits at President’s House, and indeed give the National Park Service ownership of the site.