A slavery exhibit is returning to the Independence Center in Philadelphia after the Trump administration ordered its removal

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Workers on Thursday began restoring an exhibit about the lives of the nine people who were once enslaved in the former president’s home in Philadelphia amid a contentious legal battle between the city and the Trump administration.

Mayor Cheryl Parker visited the site Thursday morning and thanked the workers for their efforts, spokesman Joe Grace said.

Read more: Citing Orwell’s novel “1984,” a judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate a removed slavery exhibit in Philadelphia

On Friday, a federal judge set a deadline for the Department of the Interior to restore the exhibit on people enslaved by George Washington at the site in Independence Mall. A spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the restoration work.

The administration says only it can decide what stories are told on National Park Service properties. Last month, Park Service workers abruptly removed the exhibits from the Philadelphia site, prompting the city and other supporters of the exhibit to file a lawsuit.

He watches: Researcher says Trump’s efforts to rewrite US history ‘reminiscent of McCarthyism’

U.S. District Judge Cynthia Roof on Monday issued an injunction ordering the recovery of the materials while the case proceeds and barring Trump officials from creating new interpretations of the site’s history.

A slavery exhibit is reinstalled by National Park Service workers at a historic site in Philadelphia, after a US judge ordered it reinstalled, on February 19, 2026. Photograph by Hannah Pierre/Reuters

In her 40-page opinion, Rove compared President Donald Trump’s administration to the totalitarian regime in the dystopian novel “1984,” which revised historical records to fit her narrative. She said the federal government does not have the ability to “hide and dismantle historical facts.”

“If he leaves the President’s Cabinet in tatters throughout this conflict, so will the history he tells,” wrote Rove, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush.

“Worse still, the prospect of replacing the exhibits with alternative text — a reasonable assumption at this time — would be a permanent, irreparable rejection of the historical integrity of the site,” she wrote.