Removing Truth & Sanity from American History (United States)

A Conversation with Michiko Quinones of the 1838 Black Metropolis Project

National Park Service (NPS) workers remove the displays at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park on 22/01/26 in Philadelphia. CREDIT: Tom Gralish, Tribune News Service

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A recent event has once again made Philadelphia the epicenter of discussions on race, history, the dirty business of slavery, and how the story of the founding of the United States should be passed down to future generations.

On Thursday, January 22, display panels that included information about the role of the U.S. slave trade in the development of the country and the humanization of the nine slaves—Oney Judge, Hercules, Austin, Christopher Sheels, Richmond, Giles, Paris, Moll, and Joe (Richardson) once owned by U.S President George Washington—were removed from the National Park Service (NPS) site as per the March 2025 federal government Executive Order titled, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” This is the site of the Presidential Mansion (Masters-Penn House) during the 10-year period when Philadelphia served as the capital of the United States (1789–1800).

This removal was an issue that local area historians, activists, museums, tour guides, and history lovers had anguished about for almost a year after the Executive Order was made public. As a result, the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition (ATAC), which was involved in the establishment of the display panels in the President’s House almost 15 years ago, has united with the City of Philadelphia to sue the Trump Administration and National Park Service for the return of the display panels to their rightful places.

People who are not familiar with the President’s House can find an ideal description of what it is and represents by Roger C. Aden in the book Upon the Ruins of Liberty: Slavery, the President’s House at Independence National Historic Park, and Public Memory.

“The President’s House is a challenging place because of the tension between recognizing the untold stories of disenfranchised groups and envisioning the United States as a place where all subscribe to a single national narrative.”

The President’s House is also where historian Nathan Huggins notes in reference to the Founding Father’s proclamation of “e pluribus unum (out of many, one), most Americans have never “been comfortable with the pluralistic reality of the American nation,” an observation that rings especially true at this time.

To discuss the issue, I contacted Michiko Quinones, Co-Founder and Director of Public History for the 1838 Black Metropolis Project. The project’s goal is to ensure that history is never forgotten, and it focuses on many of the 19th century lives of Black Philadelphians and their various roles as leaders, abolitionists, artists, educators, and others “by acknowledging and celebrating the foundational contributions that Black people in the 19th Philadelphia made to the city.”

Note that edits have been made for clarity and space.

Attorney Michael Chord, founder of ATAC, leaving the Federal Court House on 30/01/26. CREDIT: Phila Tribune Abdul Sulayman

Thibert: It feels a bit like a crude joke that a little over a week before the start of Black History Month, the display panels were removed. Do you think this is just happenstance or is the timing of this removal purposeful?

Michiko: There are so many things that could go into that question. We have a president who does not let us focus on the fact that he is a pedophile and probably a murderer. That kind of stuff is still waiting to be released, and anything he can do to take us off his trail, he is doing it. So, there’s that, and then there is ICE, and he is trying to ignore the fact there is a murderous group of people running around killing Americans. So do they care about Black History Month and did they make a statement about MLK? No and no.

This is an administration that is clearly and proudly anti-Black. They might have done something in relation to Black History Month, but you have to consider that they are doing atrocious and murderous things and that they probably did them to make us focus on what they want us to see.

Will they support Black History Month? No. Will they try to do some other things? Yes. Could it be possible they’re trying to get all of us to rise up so they can execute a high level of oppression? They’re really poking and provoking the general public, and they can do this because they will claim to have some type of justification.

I think what’s notable is that among the agitators are seasoned organizers. We’ve been through the Black Panthers, CONTELPRO, and the crack epidemic. Before you used to say they were radical hoteps. No, it’s not like that now. All Black Americans are like “ohhh,” even the ones who say they support the government.

Thibert: So, do you think this is an elaborate ploy? I know this has been referred to in Minneapolis, but is it possible to implement the Insurrection Act in Philadelphia?

Michiko: Yes! Let’s get everyone angry. What they don’t understand is that we’ve already had 200 years of this by now. I have looked at before the American Civil War when all of the people who were in Philadelphia were criminals because they were supporting “fugitives.” Philadelphia, as a society, said, “Forget you and your laws. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to open this place up and allow this to be the Zion that people want to go to. We are going to keep it open, and we are going to put those cracks in the foundation of your economic system based on the enslavement of Black people.” And we did!

Remember that we didn’t start the Civil War. Instead, we were in a cold war by attacking the economics of slave capitalism by having this place, this hub of freedom. If slave owners were closer to Philadelphia, that became part of the equation as to whether or not they were more actively pushing for the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. You’ve got proof that Philadelphia was destabilizing the economic systems of Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware to the extent that the Fugitive Slave Law was eventually passed.

“Effects of the Fugitive-Slave-Law,” cartoon criticizing the Fugitive Slave Acts, published in 1850.

Thibert: We know this because slave masters had people watching the ports for escaping slaves. They had people watching everywhere because they knew the significance of Philadelphia.

Michiko: But we also had tremendous jail support from the Black community. The Fugitive Slave Law was challenged and overturned in Philadelphia. People who were accused of being fugitive slaves went to court, for example, the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society, particularly David Paul Brown. They went to trial and had all the people vouch for the person who was called a fugitive. The courtrooms were packed. Outside, thousands of Black people gathered at the State House (Independence Hall).

That is basically jail support that has become a very vocal polity, even after we were disenfranchised.

Thibert: I want to read you a part of the Executive Order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that led to the removal of the display panels. “Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” What comes to mind when you hear this?

Michiko: I would say this is what the American narrative misses: ideology rather than truth. Americans are trying to say that talking about enslavement and oppression is an approach to history, but the reality is that the approach to history is the American narrative myth. There are plenty of historians who will tell you that.

For example, in the Revolutionary War, Black people would be freed if they fought for the British. At Yorktown when Washington won, he made absolutely sure that all Blacks who fought for the British were returned to enslavement.

Thibert: You’re referring to Lord Dunmore’s proclamation, correct?

Michiko: Yes. The narrative is Yorktown was great and the beginning of freedom in America. In fact, Washington returned many former slaves to slavery. What is the American myth? What are you leaving out? It is like one of those advent calendars when you only open up one little tiny thing each day. You have to open all those tiny windows to see the whole picture. It’s a myth.

You should read Gerald Horne. This is Horne’s argument. Jefferson was extremely rich as were many others. Why would they be upset about tax stamps? About attacks on paper supplies? The Stamp Act is a fallacy! Pouring tea into Boston Harbor is a fallacy! What they wanted is the ability to continue to be slaveholders. The British Empire was encroaching on their ability to own the slave trade. Mercantile capitalists here wanted to own that trade, including Jefferson and Washington. They wanted to continue that ownership. They could see that the British Empire wanted to take over that ownership.

We didn’t have the Somerset v Stewart case until 1772. The British Empire was making it very clear that they were moving toward making slavery illegal, but I don’t think they were going to move toward slavery being illegal in certain places where they were still making money. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society also tried to have a similar Somerset-like case here in the United States. This was all about being able to have the ability to continue to enslave people. That is what 1776 was about.

Thibert: It recently occurred to me that the President’s House served the function of being an open and possibly one of the few spaces that various groups—White, Black, and others—could come together and discuss these uncomfortable truths about the nation’s founding. Is that the real loss we face by not having the display panels up or has their removal ramped up these conversations and, in a sense, made the site relevant again?

Signage from the President's House in Philadelphia was removed and loaded into the back of a truck on Jan. 22. CREDIT: Mijuel K. Johnson

Michiko: I personally think that the display panels’ removal has ramped up conversations. Because if something is so dangerous that it has to be removed from the traditions of America, then it must be truthful. It doesn’t support the American myth I just described.

People will get more involved because what you’ve done is put a scar on the landscape and now everyone is going to be looking at it and asking “why”? We are having this conversation now, and there is this incredible buzz, and people are posting stuff and putting the history back with duct tape and paper. People are making the President’s House a site of resistance. You know who was doing it yesterday?

Thibert: Who?

Michiko: A group called White Men for Truthful History. They were putting the names of the enslaved people back up. You should interview them. Honestly, they just galvanized many people.

Let’s talk about the 1830s–1840s when the White communities attacked the Black communities. I personally believe those attacks were sanctioned from very high in the municipality. People have said they started as labor disputes, but the historical records show that it was an attack on Black wealth. I think it was a political and economic attack because so many people were coming from these border states in this cold war in which Philadelphia represented one part of that struggle.

Here Philadelphia is fighting, essentially, with the Southern plantation states, so now you see the actions on behalf of these states with the support of people who are coming in to terrorize the Black community. They would come in with the 1838 Pennsylvania Hall burning. But even before the 1834 Flying Horses Riot and the 1842 Lombard Street Riot, people came in and destroyed Black churches, Black halls, Black homes and killed Black people randomly on the streets. That kind of violence was something that was allowed to happen to the Black community. Nobody ever served time for any of that. You therefore have to consider support at the highest level.

Thibert: I always thought that Pennsylvania Hall was a place for civil discussions, but it was also a place for trading. You could buy directly from formerly enslaved vendors. So, I’ve always looked at it as such and expressed that to others. These guys are moving away from the slave economy, and they are doing the same now. People are buying direct.

We had places like Carolina Row where people expressed that they don’t like this going on, and they don’t like this happening, so we need to do something about this.

Michiko: Yes, that is also very true because not only was Pennsylvania Hall the free trade space that you are talking about, it was meant to be a hall for Black people. Because they were increasing facing racism from the halls, the formerly enslaved vendors could not rent them out. There were at least 3,000 meetings that were happening every year with about 7,000 people and the growth of intellectual societies where they needed to have public lectures on sciences and the latest technology.

Black people were trying to do that, but they did not have places big enough to gather. So you have to consider that this hall was situated in the middle of the city. It was not like it was in the Black Metropolis. No, it was in the middle of the city as a very public statement about liberty and freedom in the middle of this economy where there were plenty of people in Philadelphia who were slave owners and had lots of investments in the plantations in the South. So if you think about it, Pennsylvania Hall is always talked about it in relation to the Female Anti-Slavery Society convention that was held there. A lot of White women were there, including the Grimkes who are always talked about in that way.

Remember those people who were coming from outside of Philadelphia? In Philadelphia, the number of White people who were supporting the movement like abolitionists were probably around 1,000. The Black community was nearly 20,000 of which 7,000 were doing this active anti-slavery work. Just by looking at the numbers, we know that Pennsylvania Hall was going to be a Black space. You put this Black space right in the middle of all this activity that is happening around enslavement and it’s just as big physically as the Second Bank of the United States that (Nicholas) Biddle was actively supporting all of the slave economies in the South. You also had the incoming textile industry. This was industrial theft from England coming into Philadelphia. You also had the construction of almost 600 textile mills between 1840 and 1860 in Kensington and Fishtown. Where did these textiles come from? The South from enslaved labor. Add the 1838 Pennsylvania Hall, which is a big, tall, and beautiful building. You have to consider the hall from a messaging perspective.

Thibert: It’s a big middle finger.

Pennsylvania Hall

Michiko: Yes, it is. That’s what I love about the Black community at that time. They were so bold. In 1870, they had a parade that stopped in front of Mayor Daniel M. Fox’s house and sang a song. He was an anti-Black, pro-slavery Southern Democrat.

Thibert: It took about 8 years for the original legal battle and back and forth with the National Parks Service to come to a conclusion that led to the creation of The President’s House. We are likely to see another protracted legal battle. The 1838 Black Metropolis offers tours that include the house. Have you and the guides discussed how this space will now be interpreted?

Michiko: We always start our tours at the President’s House for the Black Metropolis 101. That’s not going to stop. Now what’s happened is before we were talking about the erasure of Black history from the past perspective. What we were saying was, “Hey, you’ve never heard the arguments against the Fugitive Slave Act and people winning against that Act in Independence Hall.” This has been minimized and removed from the history books.Now we’re bringing it back. Now we are saying, “This truth has physically been erased and here is the scar in the landscape.” We are not imaging this, people. This is real. Now what do you think about it?

The other thing is like I said earlier: Ona Judge and her joy of freedom at the moment she stepped out of that house and into a carriage and felt the excitement of becoming free. Her freedom is still reverberating in that space. The energy doesn’t die. That is what I like about learning the history. Homes have been burned down, but that doesn’t stop us. In fact, it helps build a case against violence and White supremacy and build a case toward living humanity. We are not going to stop that. We are just going to keep being in that space.

Signs put up by locals and visitors after the removal of signage at The President’s House. CREDIT: Unknown

Thibert: Something caught my attention while I was reading about the discourse leading up to the creation of The President’s House. Around the 2000s, there were not any narratives concerning Black Philadelphians and seemingly no visible footprint. A lot has changed since then. Will visitors who take self-guided tours around the Olde City/NPS be able to come and learn about the Black contributions to American history?

Michiko: Yes. If they use our self-guided tours, they will find way too much history.

Thibert: (Laughs)

Michiko: It’s going to be Society Hill, Washington Square. I mean the center of Black Metropolis is 7th and Lombard. We have multiple self-guided tours. We have identified homes that still exist. Some spaces don’t exist, but we know the stories around them. All the stuff has been identified and there is still more stuff.

Thank God Charles Blockson made sure all the historical markers are still there. He did a ton of work on them. That helps to orientate people, so even if there was no 1838 Black Metropolis, you still have the markers for the Lombard Street Riot, Frank Johnson, Free African Society—all this is still there. If people want to ignore them, they can, but if they want to pay attention to them, then they already have Black history indicated in the landscape.

Partial map of The Seventh Ward of Philadelphia. Distribution of Negro inhabitants throughout the ward, and their social conditions. (1899)

Thibert: I found it interesting that not only were the display panels regarding the nine slaves, slave trade, and the yellow fever epidemic removed, but other information was also taken away. That information was about the first 10 years of the executive branch, which included conflicts with the Indigenous population, the Naturalization Act of 1790, and the Alien-Sedition and related acts.

The 1838 Black Metropolis project is part of the NPS’s Reconstruction Era Network. You are actually the first initiate. Have you spoken or heard any updates from the NPS? Is there a concern that this relationship will bediscontinued?

Michiko: I think this relationship is still going. I haven’t heard anything about it going away. The NPS seems to be supportive of what we’re doing. They’re a lot of good people in the federal government, and they are also going through their own struggles with what’s happening right now. The people that we know are good people.

Thibert: The 1838 Black Metropolis Project offers a free curriculum designed by Dr. Stephanie Joy Tisadle and made possible by funding from the Philadelphia Funders. Since funding was cut to the NPS in early 2025, which gave a number of free school tours, have you seen an uptake in usage from area schools?

Michiko: I am not sure of the numbers. What I can tell you is that we have four schools that are going to be beta testing the curriculum in February. We’ve got a 10th grade African American studies classes. We’ve got a partnership with the school district, and they will be walking through that curriculum. As the teachers let us know how the kids respond, it may become something more permanent.

Thibert: Reviewing your site, I saw a number of individuals who I was familiar with like Purvis, Dinah, Francis Harper, Stephen Smith, and William Johnson. I also saw a number of unfamiliar individuals. In your opinion, is there a fear, specifically to a lot of more nationalist Americans, that learning all kinds of history will dismantle what they know about the United States and cause them to question the why’s and how’s of building the nation?

Michiko: It’s just like if you look back to when you were a child. Let’s say you grew up in a family that was dysfunctional. You go to therapy and realize, “Oh, Uncle so and so was actually predatory.” You get real with it. It’s not funny. We all have to look back at this family we belong to in the United States. We have to get real about what happened to people and stop saying “That’s just how men were back then.” We keep giving this apologist excuse and it perpetuates the trauma. Do we want to perpetuate the trauma? Some people are invested in keeping themselves in a fog. Some other people actually want to heal. We have to get real about the trauma of the past. That doesn’t mean anybody gets beaten up for it. It does mean that we have to be honest about it.

I think about what’s going on with White people right now. They feel like they are going to be attacked.

Thibert: I get that impression as well.

Michiko: That’s never been the point. That is a self-inflicted wound for them. There are no Black people out here saying “Your ancestors killed my ancestors and you are responsible.” It’s more like “Your ancestors stole labor from my ancestors, and we have had generation after generation trying to recover.” Can you just be clear that this is where we are starting? Can we just be honest about that?

It would be nice if the attitude was just “Yes, I see that. How can we start to heal from that?” There are countries that have done this. Look at Germany. They made sure that the Holocaust is part of every curriculum and there are memorials everywhere. Sure, the Right is rising again in Germany, but 20 years ago every German had this intense history of the Holocaust. Not to make them feel guilty, but just so they could understand how you can watch people’s attitudes turn into trauma, death, and genocide.

We have not had that Truth and Reconciliation Committee here in the United States. People are afraid of being attacked. No one is trying to attack and make you feel bad. We are trying to prevent people from getting killed.

My point earlier about the fact that, in 1842, there were attacks on the Black community that, in 1844, you allowed that violence to go unanswered. By the time you get to 1844, the violence continued as White on White.

The Nativist Riots were White people pulling canons into the street and destroying churches by burning them down. So now what you see is the violence that you’ve allowed against people of color for all these years because you don’t want to deal with trauma and reconciliation. Now it’s turning against White people. You have Renee Good getting shot. You have Alex Peretti getting shot. It’s a shocker for White people, but usually not a shocker for Black people because this has been going on for 200 years.

You must put the kibosh on that type of violence. The only way to have some truth and reconciliation is to engage in it. I’m not saying all White people. There many White people doing this work on their own. But there are so many others engaged in the myth of America and freedom that they don’t understand everyone believes in freedom. It’s not like Black people are saying, “We want to kill the American narrative.” We just want to be honest about it because, if you look at it, Black people have been the ones engaging with what the Declaration of Independence and Constitution really mean.

We’ve been at the forefront of this because we take these laws more seriously than most Americans, especially in the early 19th century. So no one is trying to put you in jail for that. Just trying to stop this energy of attack of exclusion and violence that is what you have associated it with.

Depiction of the Nativity Riots.

Thibert: Your logo has the words Reclaim, Restore, and Rewrite. Why did your organization choose those exact words and what should they mean for those learning about 1838 Black Metropolis?

Michiko: Reclaim the geographic spaces of colonial, antebellum Philadelphia Black history through Black history, walking tours, and events. We realize that we’ve lost the ancestral homelands and the sense that we were here and did amazing things here, but all that got lost. What we want to do is go back to those spaces and recognize those events, such as conventions and exposure of the cracks of the foundation of the slavery empire. We did it all in this particular space. People thought it’s just the 7th Ward and it doesn’t include the 5 th or the 4 th Wards. Those are where most Black people lived in the early and mid-19 th century. The 7th Ward was a Black area later in the 19th century.

Restore is that everyone should know. We just want to restore Black history. There are so many things that have been written like from Charles Blockson, but it is not making it into the textbooks. It is not making it to the collective knowledge where people go, “Oh, yes this was a Black area in the 1850s.” We are trying to restore that knowledge.

Rewrite is that sometimes we find that there are things that are clearly in the newspapers or in journals that someone did or their dissertation, and we want to restructure and bring it back into the community. For example, Beneficial Hall was almost forgotten. We did a whole review of the history of around that time. We’ve been rewriting it so people know about what happened. We look at it day by day in the newspaper both Black and White and rebuilding what happened on the ground via first-person stories that made it into the traditional textbook or Philadelphia Encyclopedia on line. We feel it’s important to rewrite, show our sources, and to encourage academia to also look at those sources and consider a rewrite. We tend to lift up people who we feel have done that incredible research.

Thibert: Are there any individual stories or characters that have cropped up during your research that deserve more attention that feeds into the development of the nation?

Michiko: Two people come to mind. One is Isaiah C. Wears. He actually was big in the Underground Railroad and Vigilance Committee. That was in the early 19 th century. Later in his life, Wears was involved in the PA Equal Rights League that was doing a lot. He also helped start churches and Sunday schools. Wears owned a lot of homes, so he was also a landlord, who also lent money for other people to buy homes. He was a political leader who helped to strategize the visual messages in the 1870 parade and probably also strategized to have it go along wards instead of at the Beneficial Society. He wrote so much and went to Harrisburg. Wears became a point person for the PA Equal Rights League and was recognized by the U.S. government in 1869(?) to help craft the 15th Amendment. He deserves the dap for that.

The other person is “Amy Hester” Hetty Reckless. She was enslaved in Salem, New Jersey. In 1825, her enslaver died and said on her deathbed that Hetty was to be freed, but the enslaver’s son didn’t honor that promise. Hetty recognized she was going to be a slave forever. Imagine you are enslaved in South Jersey and the gradual abolition laws actually say you should not be enslaved. Hetty was actually one of the last enslaved persons in South Jersey, and she knew that in Philadelphia people were free. Hetty hopped on a stagecoach with her baby and took it into Philadelphia. She met with the PA Abolition Society, and it wrote a letter to her enslaver stating that she was being abused. Her two front teeth were knocked out. Her hair was pulled out. All these things were documented. From 1825–1835, you don’t see her in the records. After that absence, she became the only enslaved Black woman in the Female Abolition Society, which was an interracial group that was formed a long with the PA Abolition Society.

All the other Black women were born free and none of them experienced slavery except her. She also became a leader in the Female Vigilance Committee that helped women coming up from enslavement. Hetty was the in- between person whose experience helped her encourage both organizations to do the right thing.

By 1842, she had established, along with a woman named Hetty Burr, a shelter for Black women by Black women on the corner of 7th and Lombard. Hetty Reckless lived to be over 100 years old. During the Civil War, she helped on the Underground Railroad, then she moved back to Philly and died at 110. Her story and so many others need to be lifted up.

Executive Committee of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society 1851 CREDIT: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College

Thibert: What’s next for 1838 Black Metropolis?

Michiko: I think what we are going to focus on our ICY Graduation Project. Philadelphia Funders gave us money to write their curriculum. We’re running it and taking those kids on walking tours. Then we’ll have a graduation ceremony at Mother Bethel AME. From there, we will keep rewriting and restoring. We’ve always followed our passion, and now we are bigger not just by having Morgan Lloyd as Lead Curator. We now have Dr. Kirsten Lee, Academic Director; Dr. Melissa Benbow Flowers; and Dr. Stephanie Joy Tisdale who wrote our big curriculum. We have many tour guides like Matthew Palmer and Becca. There are many more people. We’ve become a collective.

Thibert: I feel as though this year is certainly going to be impactful for everyone in Philadelphia. You will probably be called on a lot. Where else can people learn these things? Where will they go? Not just in regard to local history but American History?

Perhaps I am being a bit paranoid about The President’s House, but it feels like a first step. From here, I worry that more will be taken from us. I am unsure if the Desher-Morris House (Germantown White House) has been untouched. I don’t know if other NPS service sites have been touched, but it feels like slowly things will start disappearing.

Michiko: I hope it’s not true that things will disappear. I hope that’s not the case, and that the President’s is the last one and it raises enough of a movement that they don’t try it again in Philly. That’s my hope. We have 10 Black museums here and not just the African American Museum of Philadelphia (AAMP). There is the Lest We Forget of Slavery (LWP), the New Africa Center Museum, and the Marian Anderson Museum. It’s incredible what’s here. Most of them are private and have no federal monies.

I think as far as the federal government to stop what’s going on here it’s only where they own land or paid someone to do the work. I would be most worried about AAMP, which gets a lot of its money from the federal government. It wouldn’t stop the other museums, such as the Johnson House and the Robeson House. Do you really think they are going to seek funding?

Thibert: Funding is the issue. If you get some funding from the federal government, then they happened to come across it, because the federal government is currently a bit scatterbrained on a lot of issues. I feel they may come in and say, “We want you to do this,” or “If you don’t do it, we are going to pull your funding.” I think that may scare people to edit or change what they offer other people. That’s my worry. A new version of America history or rather edited or downplayed version, and people will go in not knowing any better and say, “Oh, okay, slaves were so happy that they were drinking mint juleps on plantations.” I am exaggerating a bit, but I feel like that is the nextstep and we have a few months before Philly 250.

What’s next? Restoring Sanity sounds more like an overarching plan not just a single step of taking something away. I am waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Michiko: I think you are absolutely right. It feels like this has happened before now. The 1838 organization met a professor from the University of Alabama(?). This was three years ago at an all-White school. He told us that he would love to teach what we are telling him, but he’s dealing with kids who think slavery was good because it enabled people to become Christians.

Thibert: Wow!

Michiko: I feel like the train has already left the station, and there are people who have bought into a narrative that is untruthful. That has been happening for so long. It comes down to which part of the country you’re in. Here in Philadelphia, we definitely have more truthful history. Even if the federal government pulls monies, we’re not going to be affected, but outside of Philly, I feel like yes, we will be affected.

Thibert: Thank you for your time.

Click here to learn more about 1838 Black Metropolis Project.

The President’s House (NPS) prior to removal of signage. CREDIT: Visit Philadelphia