(WASHINGTON) — The National Park Service (NPS) on Thursday began restoring the panels that were removed from the slavery exhibit at the President’s House in Philadelphia.
The restoration comes after U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe ordered the Trump administration to do so by 5 p.m. on Friday. The outdoor exhibit is a memorial to the nine enslaved Africans who were held at the site by President George Washington.
NPS workers began restoring the panels ahead of the deadline, according to ABC station in Philadelphia, WPVI.
The deadline was set in an order filed on Wednesday by Rufe, who is overseeing Philadelphia’s federal lawsuit against the Trump administration over the removal of the slavery exhibit. The exhibit was taken down by the NPS on Jan. 23.
Rufe granted a preliminary injunction requested by the city of Philadelphia in a Monday ruling, ordering the Department of Interior, which oversees NPS, to restore the exhibit as the lawsuit moves forward.
In setting the deadline, Rufe cited the federal government’s “failure to comply” with her order to restore the exhibit.
The Interior Department appealed Rufe’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Wednesday.
On Wednesday evening, the department also filed an emergency motion for an immediate stay that would block the preliminary injunction granted to Philadelphia pending the federal government’s appeal.
“The Court should stay its preliminary injunction pending appeal because the Government is likely to prevail on the merits, will face irreparable injury absent a stay, and the remaining factors also support a stay,” the motion states.
Rufe ordered the city of Philadelphia to respond to the Trump administration’s motion for an emergency stay by 4 p.m. local time on Thursday.
ABC News reached out to representatives of the city of Philadelphia, NPS and to the U.S. Interior Dept. for further comment.
In granting the preliminary injunction and ordering the government to restore the exhibit, Rufe cited George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984, comparing their actions to those of Big Brother in the book.
“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,” she wrote.
“An agency, whether the Department of the Interior, NPS, or any other agency, cannot arbitrarily decide what is true, based on its own whims or the whims of the new leadership, regardless of the evidence before it,” she added in the ruling.
She also concluded that NPS should have consulted with the city before amending the exhibit.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker called the judge’s decision a “huge win for the people of this city and our country.”
“We will not allow anyone to erase our history today,” Parker said on Tuesday.
The boards and panels that were removed told the stories of Austin, Christopher Sheels, Giles, Hercules, Joe Richardson, Moll, Oney Judge, Paris and Richmond — the nine enslaved Africans held by Washington as his home in Philadelphia.
They were removed to comply with President Donald Trump’s March 27, 2025, executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which directed the Interior Department to remove what they called “divisive, race-centered ideology” and narratives from federal cultural institutions, a department spokesperson told ABC News in a statement last month.
ABC News’ Peter Charalambous and Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
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