Trump’s ‘Orwellian’ efforts to rewrite American history meet resistance ahead of independence celebrations

On 22 January, Mijuel Johnson was in Philadelphia’s Chinatown when a friend him messaged from the President’s House, the ruins of George Washington’s home and the first White House.

There was trouble at the historical site, which is home to an exhibition about the brutal reality of slavery and the lives of the nine enslaved people kept by Washington.

“I ran over, and that’s when I saw them taking down the panels, they had crowbars… I yelled across the street, ‘get the fuck out of my house’,” said Johnson, who works there as a tour guide.

“Being born and raised a multi-generation Philadelphian, a fifth-generation descendant of chattel slavery, I feel a very personal connection to this house.”

Staff of the National Park Service (NPS) were there with crowbars at the behest of the Department of the Interior, which was enthusiastically implementing an executive order signed by President Trump last year titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”. The order decreed that historical sites across the nation should strive to “remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage” rather than “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living”.

Evidence of the executive order is everywhere as the nation gears up for the 250th anniversary of American independence on 4 July.

Statues of confederate soldiers and slave-owning founding fathers that were pulled down during the Black Lives Matter movement are being polished up and returned to prominent plinths; curators have been forced from their jobs and exhibits changed; signs at historical sites have been scrubbed of language about slavery, women’s rights and climate change.

“We are living through a George Orwell version of American governance, in which the Orwellian approach is the de facto approach our government is taking,” said Paul Steinke, the executive director of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia, the year began with a sense of foreboding. As the site of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the US Constitution in 1787, the city is considered the birthplace of modern America, making it an obvious target in the anniversary year.

“While it was a national order, Philadelphia rose to the top as a place where they sought to implement and enforce it early on,” Steinke said.

In May 2025, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum followed up Trump’s executive order with his own secretarial order, which reiterated the administration’s concerns about “improper partisan ideology” and flagged a review at Independence Mall.

But the events of the following January still came as a shock, as the panels were wrenched off the walls and loaded into trucks.

“I wept – it felt like a personal attack, an attack on my ancestors,” said Raina Yancey, the owner of the Black Journey walking tours, where Johnson works as lead guide.

Six months on, the President’s House remains in a state of disarray.

George and Martha Washington lived on the site from 1790 to 1797, when it served as the first executive mansion. Also living on the site were nine slaves, including Ona Judge, who famously slipped away from the house during a dinner service and spent years on the run as Washington relentlessly pursued her.

While only the foundations of the original building remain, walls have been built in an open-air space to mirror the layout of the original building. The names of the nine enslaved people are carved on a wall; small footprints in the concrete symbolise Judge’s flight to freedom.

Johnson said it was intentional to focus the permanent exhibition on slavery, rather than the first president, given that “there are so many memorials to George Washington”.

But turning the lens on slavery – rather than lionising Washington – irked the administration. The NPS proposed new plaques focusing on Washington and his successor, John Adams. Some panels address slavery, but Washington’s contradictory opinions are glossed over.

After the original panels were removed, the City of Philadelphia sued the government, arguing the removal violated an agreement about the exhibition between the city and the NPS. A district judge agreed and ordered the exhibit be restored.

“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,” US District Judge Cynthia Rufe wrote. “It does not.”

National Park Service staff started putting the panels back up, but before they finished, the White House appealed. That appeal is ongoing and the legal battle means half the panels remain up while the rest remain in storage.

In place of the missing panels, community groups have stuck up handwritten notices and photocopies of the originals. Volunteers take it in turns to read the text of the missing panels aloud. For tourists who have travelled to Philadelphia to learn more about America’s founding, it is bewildering.

Loune Aurelus, a 20-year-old political science student visiting from New York, had no idea about the removal of the plaques until she arrived, and said she feared history was repeating itself: “You’re removing parts of the history that our new generation needs to know about,” she said.

Similar redactions have been taking place across the country. Last week, the NPS ordered the removal of signs with quotes about slavery at the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston, which commemorate a revolutionary battle.

Other signs referencing climate change, slavery, women’s rights, labour rights, and the role of indigenous people have been flagged or removed at sites ranging from Golden Gate National Park in California to Glacier National Park in Montana.

“This is such an obvious attempt by the White House to pick one kind of history and downgrade and erase everything else,” said John Dichtl, president of the American Association for State and Local History.

In Johnson’s opinion, “they want to promote a whitewashed version of American history, literally and figuratively”.

Another institution feeling the impact of Trump’s war on history is the Smithsonian, the storied institution with 21 museums. Trump claimed in his executive order that it had “a divisive, race-centered ideology”.

He tried to fire the director of its National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet. The artist Amy Sherald withdrew an exhibition from the gallery after she was told her painting of the Statue of Liberty reimagined as a Black transgender person might offend Trump.

Scrutiny has increased as the 250th anniversary has approached. In December, the White House wrote a letter demanding the Smithsonian send the administration details of every planned exhibit, insisting they all convey “a positive view of American history”.

The letter was written by Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget and one of Trump’s most trusted advisers. Vought is also author of much of Project 2025, the 900-page blueprint for government prepared by Trump’s supporters for his second term.

However, many curators and historians refuse to be cowed. At the National Museum of American History, their 250th anniversary exhibit “In Pursuit of Life, Liberty & Happiness” displays 250 items that represent key moments in US history.

These include objects reflecting collective struggles against prejudice: a dress worn by pioneering transgender actress Alexandra Billings; a wedding cake topper from a gay marriage; and artefacts from the long battle for civil rights and racial justice.

Curator Theodore Gonzalves, speaking at a recent press tour of the exhibit, insisted they had received no requests to change anything in the exhibit: “Our job is to create a space for reflection and to tell the truth about history, to tell the truth about where we’ve been as a country.”

But Dichtl worries that smaller museums are starting to self-censor to try to avoid the attention of the Department of the Interior or Vought. He cites organisations that have removed words such as “diversity”, “inclusion” and even “empathy” and “struggle” from their texts.

“It just casts a chilling effect across the field,” he said. “Not just the park service staff, but lots of other history museums and history organisations are wondering what’s coming next.”