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More than a dozen people gathered in celebration this afternoon as National Park Service employees restored an exhibit depicting the lives of enslaved people to Philadelphia’s Independence Mall on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe set a Friday deadline for the Trump administration to restore the exhibit at the President’s House Site, after several panels were removed in January.

The exhibit, “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,” details the lives of nine people enslaved by George Washington when he lived in Philadelphia as president. They were taken down under an executive order barring content deemed to “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”

The city of Philadelphia sued the U.S. Department of the Interior and the park service, arguing the removal violated prior agreements and erased critical historical interpretation at the site.

Black history tour guide Mijuel Johnson said, “The struggle is still real,” adding that this moment is part of a broader fight to preserve public history.

“We have shown and we will continue to show that fascism can be defeated,” Johnson said. “That you can take on the most powerful figure in the history of the world and on the planet, the president of the United States, and you can win.”

Stephen Pierce, a George Washington impersonator, said the Trump administration was trying to censor the past.

“In every authoritarian dictatorship, they always go after the information first,” Pierce said. “The information that doesn’t fit with their clean narrative. And we said, ‘Oh, hell no,’ and we stopped them. And we’re going to keep on stopping them.”

Councilmember Nina Ahmad further criticized the Trump administration’s move to remove the exhibit, but thanked those who worked to restore it.

“They are watching this man dismantle everything we hold dear,” Ahmad said. “He’s dismantling democracy, but people know around the world that local people are standing up in these places, so it is very important we show up.”

Attorney Michael Coard said Thursday’s celebration was a bright spot in the push to restore the exhibit.

“We had naysayers, and we had haters, and we had opponents who said it couldn’t be done in 30 days,” Coard said. “Well, damn it, we got it done in less than 30 days.”

Beyond Philadelphia, the park service has flagged interpretive materials for removal at other historic sites, including displays that describe key moments in the civil rights movement, according to the Associated Press. At the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail in Alabama, officials have identified roughly 80 items for potential removal.

Earlier this week, LGBTQ+ rights advocates and historic preservationists also filed suit against the park service after the agency removed a Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, arguing the change erased key aspects of the site’s history and significance.