As US marks 250 years, communities and historians broaden accounts of the nation's founding

Philadelphia activists tape up printed pages at President’s House where plaques were removed

The National Park Service removed informational plaques from the President’s House site in Philadelphia in January, following President Donald Trump’s executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The plaques had documented the lives of nine enslaved people who worked at the residence when George Washington lived there as president in the 1790s, Guardian US senior reporter Melissa Hellmann reported. The City of Philadelphia, which had been instrumental in the development of the site, took the administration to court over the decision. In court filings, the administration’s lawyers argued that “ultimately, the government gets to choose” what is presented at federally operated sites. The plaques remain in storage.

As tourists visit the site ahead of July 4, local activists have taped up printed paper where the plaques once stood, explaining what was removed and why the information mattered. Hellmann told The Guardian that many people she spoke with felt the removal was a “slap in the face” because for years activists had fought to have those plaques displayed in the first place.

The Philadelphia removal is part of a broader pattern in which the Trump administration’s official commemorative program, Freedom 250, presents a view of American history that critics say omits key elements. The program’s centerpiece is a fleet of 18-wheeler mobile museums, known as “Freedom Trucks,” traveling to 1,000 schools, libraries, and public events across the country. The trucks are, according to The Guardian’s reporting, “particularly notable for their absence of any critical examination of race, slavery or civil rights.”

Freedom 250 operates alongside America250, the congressionally established initiative to mark the semiquincentennial, and the two organizations have taken different programmatic approaches to the celebration. The Trump administration’s version integrates White House events — including an IndyCar rally through Washington, a UFC championship fight on the White House lawn, and a state fair on the National Mall.

Eddie Glaude Jr., a Princeton professor who has written about the anniversary, described the administration’s approach in a Guardian interview as “active forgetting.” “What has to happen here in order to protect the innocence of the country?” Glaude said. “Black folks have to be disappeared. We have to be made to play minor parts in the story.”

Communities across the country are working to tell their own stories as the official program unfolds. Hellmann said she has spoken with groups “trying to highlight that paradox” — that the nation was founded on ideals of freedom while built by enslaved people. She is currently reporting on the Gullah Geechee people, descendants of formerly enslaved people in the US Southeast, who contributed to the American Revolution even as they were denied the freedom they fought for.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has worked with Indigenous creators to examine what nationhood means and which symbols are celebrated. One example The Guardian highlighted: the Mohawk Nation remembers George Washington as “Town Destroyer,” while many other Americans recognize him as a founding father.

The anniversary arrives amid deep public pessimism. A Pew Research Centre poll cited by The Guardian found that three in five Americans believe the country’s best days are behind it, while seven in 10 are dissatisfied with how democracy is working in their country. Hellmann described the celebrations as “pretty anti-climatic” as the actual date approaches, citing a record-setting heatwave that has delayed or scaled back outdoor events across the central and eastern United States.

The backdrop to the milestone, as Hellmann described it, includes what she characterized as the “gutting of the Voting Rights Act” by right-wing Supreme Court justices, the cancellation of temporary protected status for Syrians and Haitians — with other country protections set to expire later this year — and what Hellmann described as “the surveillance and violent aggression of ICE.” Queer families in New York told The Guardian about the dissonance of celebrating at a moment when access to trans healthcare is being curtailed.