On the 230th anniversary of Ona Judge’s daring escape from enslavement, Philadelphia formally declared May 21 as Ona Judge Day, while memorials in New Hampshire honored the woman who fled President George Washington’s official residence and built a new life in freedom. The twin observances, reported by the Associated Press on Thursday, highlight the ongoing struggle over how the nation’s founding story is told on federal land.
The commemorations come as advocates continue to fight the Trump administration’s attempts to remove exhibits about enslaved people at the President’s House site in Philadelphia, a move that critics say erases uncomfortable historical truths.
Judge was born into slavery on Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation and was 22 years old when she slipped away from the president’s official residence in Philadelphia on May 21, 1796. She hid on a boat that carried her to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where she later married and had three children.
At the Philadelphia rally, held at the President’s House site, participants chanted “Tell the truth! Restore our history!” after hearing from those involved in the fight to preserve exhibits about Judge and other enslaved people at the location. The site, the nation’s first executive mansion, was where Washington lived with his wife Martha and a rotating cast of enslaved workers.
Dawn Chavous, executive director of the Ona Judge Project, and Philadelphia City Councilmember Cindy Bass were among those who addressed the crowd. The Trump administration had targeted the President’s House exhibits under a policy aimed at removing information it deems “disparaging” to Americans from federal properties.
In Portsmouth, the Ona Judge Project led the effort for a new historical marker where Judge settled, and a portrait of Judge was unveiled at the New Hampshire State House in Concord, the Associated Press reported. The marker and portrait are part of a growing movement to recover histories that were long obscured by the sanitized official record.