Workers on Thursday began restoring an exhibit on the lives of the nine people once enslaved at the former President’s House in Philadelphia amid a contentious legal fight between the city and the Trump administration.
Mayor Cherelle Parker visited the site Thursday morning and thanked the workers for their efforts, spokesperson Joe Grace said.
Senior U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe on Monday granted an injunction ordering that the materials be restored while the lawsuit proceeds and barring Trump officials from creating new interpretations of the site’s history.
In her 40-page opinion, Rufe compared President Donald Trump’s administration to the totalitarian regime in the dystopian novel “1984,” which revised historical records to align with its narrative. She said the federal government does not have the power “to dissemble and disassemble historical truths.”
“If the President’s House is left dismembered throughout this dispute, so too is the history it recounts,” Rufe, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, wrote.