As the Liberty Bell Center neared completion in 2001, archeological evidence revealed that the new home to a symbol of freedom was adjacent to a site that exemplified freedom’s opposite: the remnants of slave quarters for those who toiled in the President’s House at 6th and Market Streets during the nearly seven years of George Washington’s presidency spent in Philadelphia.

When presented with this startling juxtaposition, the response of Independence National Historical Park’s leadership was to do nothing. An alliance of historians, journalists, local Black politicians, and the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition not only convinced the National Park Service to acknowledge the history of slavery next to the Liberty Bell, but also successfully pressed for a memorial to those enslaved by our first president. In 2010, The President’s House: Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation opened as part of Independence National Historical Park.

The creation of the President’s House memorial marked a sea change in how citizens were encouraged to contemplate our nation’s past. Rather than telling a simplistic story of heroic founding fathers creating a nation based on liberty and justice for all, people were prompted to wrestle with the complexity of freedom and slavery at the core of American history.

Alas, today we are going dramatically backwards. Recently, the World War II service of Jackie Robinson and the Tuskegee Airmen were removed from the Arlington Cemetery website, and the word slavery, as well as an image of Harriet Tubman, were deleted from a National Park Service website about the Underground Railroad. Although these deletions were reversed following public outcry, it is clear that there is an effort underway to return to a sanitized, false, and narrow depiction of American history. The struggles and the achievements of African Americans are being expunged as part of the Trump administration’s anti-DEI mania.

Citizen Activism Shapes the Landscape

In Philadelphia, however, we are well-prepared to fight back against this intended erasure. The 21st century has seen a remarkable increase in visible marking of Black history in the local landscape and in bringing hidden histories to light in the digital space. This work has been accomplished by people of diverse racial backgrounds who care about creating an inclusive and complex understanding of our city’s past.

36 state historical markers about African American history have been erected in Philadelphia since 2000. At least three of these markers were based on nominations compiled by schoolchildren, including one commemorating a 1967 student walkout that was an impetus for Philadelphia to become the first school district in the nation to require a year of African American history beginning in 2005.

2017 saw the unveiling of A Quest for Parity, the memorial to 19th century educator and activist Octavius Valentine Catto, on the south apron of City Hall. The statue of Catto was the first of an African American individual on public land in Philadelphia, and it quickly became a gathering spot for social justice demonstrations. Although Mayor Jim Kenney was an advocate for the memorial, it was a leadership board of prominent citizens that saw the project to its fruition.

In April 2024, members of The National Society of the Colonial Dames in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, staff at Stenton (an 18th century house museum), and residents of the surrounding Nicetown, Logan, and Germantown communities gathered to celebrate a new memorial to Dinah, a woman who had been enslaved by the Logan family and was credited with saving the mansion from would-be British arsonists in 1777. This monument, the first in Philadelphia to honor an enslaved woman, was the result of a multiyear effort that included Stenton’s African American neighbors in conceptualizing the form a Dinah memorial would take.

Earlier this year, Taney Street, thought to be named for the Supreme Court Justice who ruled in the Dred Scott case that Black people could not be citizens, was officially renamed to honor educator and civil rights activist Caroline Le Count as the result of a grassroots campaign that began in 2020.

Digital Resources

In addition, several outstanding websites have been developed that vividly depict different periods in Philadelphia Black history. The The 1838 Black Metropolis uses archival resources to imaginatively recreate the city’s ante-bellum African American community. Temple University’s Civil Rights in a Northern City presents oral history, photographs, video, news articles, and other documents to recount the Girard College protests and the Columbia Avenue riots of the 1960s.

The (In)Visible Architects of Freedom on the Independence National Historical Park’s website contains a remarkable collection of primary sources about Black life in Philadelphia from the 17th through the 19th centuries. Designed for educators, this digital archive was developed by a Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Foundation Fellow. The National Park Service has recently terminated the grant agreement with Mellon. While reprehensible, this comes as no surprise given the current political climate.

A Call to Action

Many of us feel a sense of helplessness when faced with the countless unprecedented actions of the Trump regime. When it comes to the attempted whitewashing of history, however, we Philadelphians have many ways of countering these efforts. The few examples shared above illustrate our collective power to preserve and memorialize Black history. To continue to build on this momentum, we can all take action.

Philadelphia has a plethora of historic sites, houses and museums that tell parts of the story of Black Philadelphia. Go visit. The Black Journey Walking Tour and other groups can show you the city through a different lens. We are lucky to have many repositories of information that house information about the city’s Black past for you to do your own research.

Share what you learn on social media and through word of mouth. When you’re ready, take the next step. Apply for a historical marker or honorary street name. Give a talk at a school or historical society. Lead a neighborhood tour. Too much of Philadelphia’s Black history was obscured for too long. It is up to us to keep the recently acknowledged past accessible no matter who is in power in Washington, D.C.

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On April 25-26, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP) is hosting a Using/Doing/Teaching Black History conference that will provide opportunities to learn about and network with practitioners of local Black history. The creators of the 1838 Metropolis website collaborated on Free, As One, an exhibition currently on display at HSP. For more information about the conference, gallery talks, and the exhibit see the exhibit’s website: https://www.portal.hsp.org/upcoming-events

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