At George Washington's house in Philadelphia, volunteers take turns reading aloud from a book about slavery. "George Washington oversaw more than 300 enslaved people, nine of whom served in his Philadelphia household," one volunteer tells tourists as they weave through an open-air monument where the presidential house once stood.

The writing should be on exhibit panels that once graced the monument's red brick walls, but the Trump administration removed them in January as part of a push to restore "truth and sanity to American history". Old City Remembers, a grassroots project led by local volunteers, is filling visitors in on the missing information during an ongoing legal battle to get the plaques reinstated.