Trump Administration Doesn’t Want Us To Remember That George Washington Enslaved Black People

On  March 27, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, titled the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which the White House claimed was an order aimed at correcting “a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history,” which only goes to show that when it comes to this administration, every accusation is actually a confession.

Since the start of Trump’s abysmal second term, his administration has vowed to restore all honors, fort names, and monuments to the Confederacy, while forcing African American history museums to remove exhibits related to slavery and the civil rights movement, having his white attorneys decide how much Black history is too much Black history, and pushing right-wing curricula that white washes American history to omit anti-Black oppression, or spin it into a wrong that America worked tirelessly to right. Either way, the goal is and has always been to prioritize white feelings over Black historical truth.

And don’t get me started on all of the disappearing of slavery-related exhibits and writings that the National Park Service has removed or tried to remove since January 20, 2025.

According to ABC News, on Thursday, the National Park Service began removing a slavery memorial at the President’s House in Philadelphia in compliance with Trump’s white fragility-appeasing EO. The exhibit, which opened in 2010,  honored the lives of the nine enslaved people held there who were owned as property by President George Washington.

From ABC:

ABC News Philadelphia station WPVI captured video on Thursday afternoon of NPS staffers taking down boards and panels that told the stories of Austin, Christopher Sheels, Giles, Hercules, Joe Richardson, Moll, Oney Judge, Paris and Richmond.

Michael Coard, a Philadelphia attorney who founded an advocacy group that fought for a slavery memorial at the President’s House for decades, told ABC News that his group, Avenging The Ancestors Coalition, is planning to announce “powerful action shortly” in response to the removal.

“The Department of the Interior is implementing Secretary’s Order 3431, which carries out President Donald J Trump’s Executive Order on ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,’ the communications office for the U.S. Interior Department, which oversees the National Parks Service, said in a statement. “The President has directed federal agencies to review interpretive materials to ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values. Following completion of the required review, the National Park Service is now taking action to remove or revise interpretive materials in accordance with the Order.”

So, are these federal agency officials tasked with reviewing the accuracy of historical exhibits seasoned historians? Because, again, Trump had lawyers — including the woefully underqualified attorney he had unlawfully serving as Virginia’s U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan — scouring the Smithsonian for “improper ideology” in exhibits that “overemphasize the negative to teach people that certain aspects of our nation’s history may have been bad.”

In September, we reported that the Trump administration had begun purging the National Parks of slavery exhibits, including but not limited to the iconic portrait of a runaway slave’s severely whipped back, titled “The Scourged Back.”

Before that, the National Park Service webpage tried to erase Harriet Tubman from the story of the Underground Railroad. It also rewrote language regarding the Underground Railroad, describing it as an example of “Black/White Cooperation” in the abolition movement. After facing a flood of backlash, Tubman’s story was restored to the website, but it also kept the ahistorical narrative about “white cooperation” to keep Caucasians from getting their Confederate flag-printed drawers all in a bunch.

These so-called “patriots” aren’t really proud of their country. Otherwise, they wouldn’t go through such efforts to hide key parts of its history. Trump isn’t having his anti-intellectual, white nationalist goods comb through World War I and II, or Revolutionary War exhibits to make sure everything is on the up and up. His administration has shown that it’s only interested in putting Black history, general studies, LGBTQ teachings, and curricula highlighting the achievements and oppression of marginalized groups.

Especially Black history, though. White America really can’t stand that particular mirror being held up to it — so it moves to break the mirror rather than look at its reflection.

Sad.

SEE ALSO:

Why White Folks Are Grieving Over Destroyed Relics to White Supremacy

Trump Administration Erases Black History At Arlington National