George Washington, Slavery, and the Fight for American Memory

Name: George Washington, Slavery, and the Fight for American Memory
Start: 2026-09-23T23:00:00.000Z
End: 2026-09-24T02:00:00.000Z
Location: philadelphia

philadelphia, philadelphiaWednesday, Sep 23 · 7:00 PM

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Doors 7:00 PM

The Story

The Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides (APT) is pleased to announce a [free Zoom webinar](https://phillyguides.org/event/george-washington-slavery-and-the-fight-for-american-american-memory/) on Wednesday September 23 at 7 pm with [John Garrison Marks](https://www.johngmarks.com/), author of the recent book, *[Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory](https://bookshop.org/p/books/thy-will-be-done-george-washington-s-legacy-of-slavery-and-the-fight-for-american-memory-john-garrison-marks/8de5041dd9ec39bb?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=dsa_nonbrand&utm_content=%7Badgroupname%7D&utm_term=dsa-19959388920&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=12440232635&gbraid=0AAAAACfld43GpiNJccrXvYRWpSxuG-TqW&gclid=CjwKCAjwkaXUBhASEiwAZI3ds6fQ8-ZMpGVnJYWvlYUOCoOe_0fTZMZrV1S6xKOCWx62TMIf7lz93xoCXJMQAvD_BwE)*. His perspective is particularly valuable now as guides in Philadelphia grapple with how best to interpret the President’s House/ Slavery Memorial with a full set of rewritten panels. How should we remember George Washington’s entanglement in slavery? Americans have argued over that question for nearly 250 years. More than any other Founding Father, Washington’s ties to slavery have vexed us. He enslaved more people than any of his fellow founders, yet he was the only one of them to emancipate the people he held in bondage. Since his death, Americans have grappled with this contradiction, shaping and reshaping our collective memory of Washington and slavery—along with our understanding of the nation. In this talk, historian John Garrison Marks tells the story of Americans’ long, fraught struggle to come to terms with Washington’s legacy of slavery. He traces how politicians, abolitionists, educators, activists, Washington’s former slaves and their descendants, and others have remembered, forgotten, and manipulated slavery’s place in Washington’s story, and how they have wielded versions of that story in the political and

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