Raina Yancey’s mom was a park ranger at Independence Nationwide Historic Park, and a few of her earliest recollections come from summers spent absorbing the historical past of the place.
“As a child, my mother took me to work together with her, and I used to be all the time working across the park and absorbing all of the historical past,” Yancey stated. “These years are actually what impressed me to do what I do now.”
Yancey immediately is a tour information and founding father of The Black Journey, a strolling tour of Philly’s Black historical past that features visiting Independence Nationwide Historic Park. Yancey began The Black Journey out of her love for the historical past of the park and stated it’s a strategy to proceed her mom’s work.
Final week, greater than a dozen Independence NHP displays that highlighted the presence of enslaved individuals on the website and candidly addressed the nation’s legacy of slavery had been flagged for assessment in accordance with an government order from the Trump administration.
On Saturday, over 100 historians, religion leaders and residents gathered steps away from the Liberty Bell to protest the potential elimination of displays and defend the integrity of a slavery-focused exhibit on the President’s Home website at sixth and Market streets. They included a number of the Black activists who had been key to the creation of the displays, working between 2002 and 2010 to advocate for a fuller telling of the positioning’s historical past.
In line with inside paperwork obtained by the New York Instances, the Nationwide Park Service will consider supplies on the President’s Home Website, the Benjamin Franklin Museum, the Second Financial institution, Independence Corridor and Independence Mall to find out whether or not they include data that “inappropriately disparages People previous or residing.”
‘I’ll preserve working the tour’
“I take subject notably with the ‘inappropriate’ label,” Yancey stated. “It’s not inappropriate. It’s my historical past and the historical past of my ancestors. So for our historical past to be excluded, it’s painful and hurtful.”
If the displays had been to be eliminated or altered after assessment, Yancey believes it might solely make her work extra necessary as her tour firm must in some methods substitute, reasonably than complement, the displays on the nationwide park.
“[We’ll be] doubling down, offering much more excursions to share much more historical past with our guests from all all over the world,” Yancey stated in discussing how she would reply to the elimination of the displays. “We’re impartial. So I’ll preserve working the tour so long as I’ve breath in my physique.”
Six of the shows Yancey could should make up for in future excursions are on the President’s Home Website, the place George Washington and John Adams lived. These displays spotlight the distinction between freedom and slavery in America’s founding years and memorialize these enslaved by Washington who lived in Philadelphia.
‘A slap within the face’
For Rebecca Fisher, the co-founder of Past the Bell Excursions, the displays on the President’s Home Website had been the inspiration for beginning her tour enterprise.
Past the Bell presents excursions highlighting LGBTQ+ individuals and ladies’s contributions to historical past, in addition to elements of the previous that Fisher feels aren’t correctly represented in different excursions.
“Different excursions weren’t essentially speaking about slavery,” Fisher stated. “They weren’t
essentially going into any of the tales that I felt had been necessary for us, notably like what’s represented on the president’s home.”
The displays in danger spotlight historical past that Fisher feels is already underrepresented. That risk frustrates her.
“I believe it’s a slap within the face to the individuals who labored so tirelessly to get that monument there,” Fisher stated. “It’s a step backwards, however it’s additionally precisely what this nation is able to. It’s an embrace of our worst nature.”
Fisher and Yancey each stated they’d seen dips in vacationers from different nations on their excursions and linked that to slippage in America’s worldwide fame. Neither had heard a unfavorable touch upon their excursions relating to the displays at the moment in danger, although hey have seen such criticism in on-line feedback.
Fisher stated she has seen fewer Canadians on her excursions this yr, and linked that to the commerce battle between the 2 nations and President Trump’s statements relating to the attainable annexation of Canada by the U.S. Even so, she and Yancey each stated it hasn’t affected their companies economically.
Information has heard ‘woke’ complaints
Sarah Majors, a tour information for over six years with Grim Philly, stated the excursions provided by Yancey and Fisher could cater extra to audiences which are extra accepting of the displays.
Grim Philly highlights extra of Philly’s “darkish historical past”, and he or she stated some friends have been essential.
“I’ve had individuals yell at me or depart the tour as a result of I’m being too ‘woke’ or too political,” Majors stated. “It’s few and much between, however undoubtedly has occurred.”
Main stated her tour group members are in search of leisure greater than training. Even so, she feels an obligation to “sound the alarm” and let tour individuals know that some displays are at the moment below scrutiny. She expects to listen to unfavorable feedback concerning the displays from some individuals.
“You’re welcome to specific your opinion. That’s the fantastic thing about residing in a rustic with freedom of speech. However I can’t change actuality for you,” Majors stated. “I’m not going to contribute to not telling the reality.”
The Trump administration has stated it can take away or display from view all materials discovered to be inappropriate by Sept. 17, 2025.