PHILADELPHIA — Students and teachers from two Philly area private schools joined up with activists and protesters Friday morning at the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park to demand that the site’s slavery exhibit be restored after it was abruptly dismantled last month.

“Whitewashing history is a totalitarian gimmick,” read one sign in a crowd that included young and older people. “All our stories must be told,” read another.

The “teach in” was held in front of a granite wall etched with the names of nine slaves owned by U.S. founding father and first president George Washington. The wall is one of the few remnants of the slavery exhibit that was dismantled by order of the Trump administration.

Standing at a lectern, the students, from Solebury School in Bucks County and Friends Select in Center City, read the biographies of the slaves whose names had been etched on the wall.

Activist and criminal defense attorney Michael Coard told the crowd he helped to create the slavery exhibit after learning that Washington owned slaves — and realizing that his educators had failed to teach him about it.

“When I learned about that, I was enraged, because I’d never heard about it,” Coard said.

With the help of elected officials, the President’s House Site became a reality in 2010, Coard said.

But when the Trump administration issued its “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order last March, Coard knew that the exhibit could be targeted. The order calls on the U.S. Department of the Interior to remove historical exhibits that “perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history” or “disparage Americans past or living.”

“Anything pertaining to Black people, he was opposed to it,” Coard said of President Trump.

Since then, Coard said, there’s been a furious legal battle to have the site restored. Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker sued the federal government. A judge ordered the government to safeguard the exhibits, which are currently in storage, while the issue plays out in federal court.

Coard encouraged people to sign a petition, attend protests, and stay involved in future protests.

“Just because you can’t do everything, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything,” Coard told the crowd, quoting poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron.

Solebury School college counselor Erin Wallace joined the 50 students who traveled by bus to the site for the “teach in.”

Wallace said the students are “very active” in following national politics, and were eager to attend the protest. About 25% of the student body attended, Wallace said.

“It was an overwhelmingly positive response,” Wallace said.

Solebury School history teacher Don Kaplan of Elkins Park attended the first vigil after the site was shuttered. Kaplan said he organized the “teach in” student protest because it is relevant to what he teaches his 9th and 11th grade students.

“I just thought to myself, we need to address this,” Kaplan said.

Kaplan asked that his students not be quoted directly. But after the rally, he struggled to keep his 11th graders from weighing in as he was interviewed for this story.

“We should teach all history,” two students said.

They explained that in Kaplan’s class, their research often shows that historical figures are not purely good or evil and were shaped by myriad forces.

To Kaplan, that stands in contrast to Trump administration’s perspective on teaching history, which seeks to eliminate “negative” stories about America’s founders.

“That’s not what we do,” Kaplan said. “We have to teach every possible perspective.”

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