When does it stop?
When do the lies stop about the racism that lay at the heart of America’s democracy since its inception?
President Trump’s bigoted plan to seek removal of references to slavery located outside the pavilion in Philadelphia that houses America’s majestic Liberty Bell wallows in a lie fraught with irony and ignorance.
An absurdity embedded in Trump’s effort to whitewash history is the historic fact that this iconic symbol of American freedom received its name from anti-slavery activists in the 19th Century. An exhibit inside the Bell Pavilion begins with this statement: “Abolitionists in the 1830s gave the State House Bell a new name, Liberty Bell, recognizing the contradiction between the ideals of the Revolution and the reality of more than four million enslaved people.”
The specific references Trump reportedly seeks to erase contain historical facts about the horrors of slavery.
It is ironic that the Trump administration plans to announce its actions for the President’s House site on September 17. The formal approval of the U.S. Constitution during the famous convention in Philadelphia occurred on September 17, 1787 — when U.S. founders declined to end slavery in the self-declared “Land of the Free.”
Those references targeted by the Trump administration are six slavery-focused panels at the President’s House in Philadelphia. This site, located directly in front of the Liberty Bell Pavilion, is a stylized recreation of the mansion George Washington — America’s first President — once occupied in the city known as the “Birthplace of American Democracy.”
Those panels at that open-air site became one of the nation’s first-ever memorial about slavery located on federal property when it opened on December 15, 2010. A National Park Service (NPS) webpage about the President’s House describes it as a “unique exhibit focusing on the contradiction of liberty and enslavement in the new nation.” They include the documented fact that George Washington held slaves at that mansion when Philadelphia served as America’s capital before construction of Washington, D.C.
Earlier this year, Trump announced his intention to remove all material from national parks and museums that he claimed, “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” For Trump, acknowledging the undeniable historic fact that America’s heroic first President owned slaves, disparages Washington … thus is inappropriate.
Apologists for America’s institutional racism cite the fact that George Washington did not break U.S. law by owning slaves. However, a fact apologists consistently ignore is that Washington conscientiously broke Pennsylvania law with his slave ownership.
PA law during Washington’s presidency required freedom for any enslaved person held in this state by a non-resident for more than six months. Washington routinely rotated his slaves back to his plantation in Virginia to skirt the six-month provision in Pennsylvania’s freedom law.
The NPS, which controls the Liberty Bell, withheld public acknowledgement of George Washington’s slave ownership in Philadelphia for decades. The NPS once defended its suppression of this historic fact as merely a benign effort not to cause discomfort to white tourists visiting the Bell.
So, where does Trump’s removal rampage stop?
Complete erasure of slavery references at that site must also include removal (or covering) of the names of enslaved persons who toiled for Washington at that mansion now etched into a stone wall at the President’s House exhibit.
Complete erasure must include removal of exhibits inside the Liberty Bell Pavilion that present details about the abolitionists who renamed that object plus the exhibit that recognizes the Philadelphian who gained presidential approval in 1948 for a ‘National Freedom Day’ that honors the 13th Amendment’s abolition of slavery.
Recently, a multi-racial coalition opposed to Trump’s plans to remove slavery references from the President’s House site held a public meeting in North Philadelphia to provide an overview of its strategies to preserve those exhibits. Announced strategies include lawsuits, political pressure and public protests.
Speakers during that meeting included persons who represent contemporary examples of the embedded racism that America’s body politic persistently denies. Sara Lomax, who condemned Trump for “trying to erase” contributions of Black people, is CEO of Philadelphia’s WURD radio station — the only Black-owned talk radio station in Pennsylvania. Institutional racism blocked Black ownership of an American radio station until October 1949 — when over 2,000 radio stations existed. And continuing racism is evident in Black ownership comprising less than two percent of the nation’s current 15,000-plus radio stations.
Koyuki Yip, who condemned Trump for his “fascism” also assailed the Trump Administration for seeking to whitewash history about the ugly internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. That mass internment cost Japanese Americans billions in losses from homes to businesses to farms. Yip is a fourth generation Japanese American.
It is sadly ironic that the Trump administration plans to announce its actions for the President’s House site on September 17. The formal approval of the U.S. Constitution during the famous convention in Philadelphia occurred on September 17, 1787 — when U.S. founders declined to end slavery in the self-declared “Land of the Free.”
Linn Washington Jr., an award-winning journalist, is a journalism professor at Temple University.
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