The Underground Railroad without slaves<\/p>\n
The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act mandates the park service to identify, preserve and promote sites connected to the historic Underground Railroad. The park service officially designated the President\u2019s House site as a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site in 2022, a tribute to Oney Judge, who successfully escaped from Washington\u2019s enslavement.\n<\/p>\n
Judge Thomas Hardiman asked in den Berken whether or not the federal government was violating its responsibilities under that law.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re going to have a site designated as an Underground Railroad site, how could it possibly comply with federal law if it had no mention of slavery?\u201d Hardiman asked the administration.\n<\/p>\n
In den Berken responded that there are few requirements under that act.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter such designation, there is no particular provision in the statute that says, \u2018And this must be displayed at the site and this must remain there,\u2019\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
In den Berken also told the court that the changes at the site did not erase history and that the government\u2019s plan was merely to \u201cemphasize or discuss the life of President George Washington and John Adams during their time at the President\u2019s House without discussing slavery.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no assertion or statement by the federal government that these facts were false, never happened, anything like that,\u201d in den Berken said. \u201cIt was a curatorial decision.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
However, Taylor responded that the location of the site made telling the story of those Washington had enslaved at the site that much more consequential.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe President\u2019s House is at the doorway to the Liberty Bell,\u201d she said. \u201cThat history is not being told to all the people who are expected to come here.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Republicans join the fight<\/p>\n
The fight for the exhibit has become a bipartisan effort with U.S. Sen. David McCormick, R-Pa., joining the call for the site\u2019s restoration. During a conference call with the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, regional director Nate Gerace said the senator was closely watching how the story unfolds.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOur history is our history and what makes America exceptional is our willingness to confront our history honestly, and learn from both the triumphs and the failures and keep working toward a more perfect union,\u201d Gerace said. \u201cWe\u2019ve taken a consistent position on similar issues, such as efforts to rename military bases like Fort Bragg<\/a> or remove statues like those of William Penn and Christopher Columbus<\/a>.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Famed local attorney George Bochetto, who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2022 as a Republican<\/a>, was also on the call. Bochetto came to prominence after successfully defending the Columbus statue at Marconi Plaza<\/a> after the city tried to take it down in 2021.\n<\/p>\n \u201cSome of us Republicans have faced the struggle and have faced the difficulties and we understand what it is to struggle and to fight,\u201d Bochetto told the people on the call, adding he was \u201chappy to be aligned\u201d with Michael Coard, a co-founder of the coalition. \u201cI don\u2019t always agree with him, but I always agree that he does a magnificent job for the cause.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Underground Railroad without slaves The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act mandates the park service to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":840987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,166851,1448,2830,1311,132553,49738,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-840986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-america","tag-david-mccormick","tag-pa","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-presidents-house","tag-trump-impact","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116685023882415629","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}