The American Historical Association has filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the City of Philadelphia’s lawsuit challenging the removal of the Freedom and Slavery Exhibit at Independence National Historical Park. Our brief provides historical and professional context for the case, which argues that the National Park Service’s actions undermine the historical integrity of the site.
The exhibit, which was peer reviewed and had been previously approved by the NPS, documented the lives of enslaved people at the President’s House. Its removal narrows public understanding of the nation’s founding and obscures the history of slavery in the early United States.
Our brief situates the exhibit’s removal within broader federal actions following Executive Order No. 14253, which directed the Department of the Interior to remove certain interpretive content from sites under its jurisdiction. In response, the National Park Service has removed or altered interpretive materials at multiple locations, including those addressing African American, Indigenous, gender, and environmental history.
These removals not only distort American history, but also go against the Park Service’s avowed mission of sharing “accurate and comprehensive history” that includes “the good, the bad, [and] the ugly.” Perhaps most troublingly, the erasure of history poses a threat to democracy itself. For democracy to thrive, a country’s people must be freely able to examine and learn from their nation’s full, unvarnished past.
The brief was filed by Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) and Ballard Spahr LLP on behalf of the AHA.