Good morning all,
It’s been a pretty hectic last 36 hours. Following the National Park Service’s controversial removal of the slavery exhibit at the President’s House site—which told the history of the people George Washington enslaved while serving as President in Philadelphia—I’ve been busy trying to provide perspective and historical context. Not only is this effort to quite literally remove George Washington’s history with slavery from public view, it happened at Independence National Historical Park just months before the nation commemorates the 250th, an anniversary I’ve been helping organizations plan for for nearly a decade now.
Here’s a rundown of the latest:
I wrote an essay for TIME that shares some of the research from my book to help us understand how this removal fits into a much wider history of Americans’ remembering, forgetting, and fighting over slavery’s place in Washington’s legacy.
I did a Q&A feature with the Philadelphia Inquirer to provide background and historical context.
I was interviewed for a piece at Politico’s E&E News (the Park Service often gets covered by the environment team) to offer perspective.
I did a Substack Live event with where we discussed this latest episode, along with broader issues of historical memory and commemoration.
I expect there will be more of this to come in the week ahead, and then President’s Day next month.
Finally, I’ll quickly note that the cover of my book features work by the contemporary artist Titus Kaphar. He created a very traditional portrait of George Washington and then shredded and nailed over top of it the newspaper advertisement seeking the capture of Ona Judge, who had fled from slavery from Washington’s house in Philadelphia—the exact subject of some of the interpretive panels that were just torn down. You can see the piece and others in the series here.
I was thrilled when I got permission to use this art on the cover because it does such an incredible job capturing the themes of my book. It forces us to ask ourselves, quite literally, how we might see Washington differently if his history with slavery was placed front and center. This work was fitting for the book event before this latest controversy, but I’m even happier today that I’m able to feature this art on the front of my book.
Thank you again to anyone who pre-ordered the book. If you’d still like to do that, you can pre-order here (or find it anywhere you get your books; or ask your local library to order a copy!). If you’d like me to sign your copy, just put in a request for a signed book plate here and I’d be happy to mail you one.
More to come.
JM