Comparing the Trump administration’s efforts to control historical documentation to George Orwell’s 1984, a federal judge ordered the return of displays that acknowledged George Washington’s ownership of enslaved people to a monument in Philadelphia.
Last month, the National Park Service removed the signs from the President’s House Site, the presidential residence for Washington and John Adams before the completion of the White House. The President’s House Site is part of the Independence National Historical Park, which is managed by the NPS. The removed exhibit described “the local history of slavery and commemorating the nine enslaved people Washington kept there while he was president,” according to the New York Times
The City of Philadelphia then sued the Interior Department and the National Park Service, with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro filing an amicus brief in support of the city’s suit. On Monday, Judge Cynthia M. Rufe, of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, granted a preliminary injunction ordering the return of the displays while the lawsuit plays out in court.
In response to the NPS’s claim that the displays were removed in the interest of “accuracy, honesty and alignment with shared national values,” Rufe, in her written opinion, quoted Orwell’s 1984: “All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place.”
She continued: “As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims—to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. It does not.”
After the legal mic-drop, the Times said the White House declined to comment.
