A groundbreaking discovery and a search for lost ancestry: The story behind Philadelphia's contested slavery memorial

As the city of Philadelphia fights the Trump administration's removal and replacement of the slavery memorial at the President's House, the man who founded the movement to build the exhibit decades ago has found himself at the center of a heated national debate about how to tell this painful chapter of U.S. history.

"On the eve of the 250th, Americans, far and wide, are going to be talking about how patriotic they are, how much they love this country. Well, you can't love something unless you know something," said Philadelphia attorney Michael Coard.

Coard founded Avenging the Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) in 2002 -- the group that launched a successful movement to build the exhibit, which memorializes the nine African men and women who were enslaved at the site of the nation's first White House by President George Washington.

As the future of the memorial remains uncertain as America turns 250, Coard reflected on how a remarkable archaeological discovery and his own search for his lost ancestry inspired a decades-long fight to preserve the history of enslaved Africans in the nation's birthplace.

A groundbreaking archaeological discovery

Although it was well-documented that Washington enslaved hundreds of people, this part of his legacy was largely omitted from public exhibits and historical sites, including Philadelphia, presidential historian Mark Updegrove told ABC News.

"For so long in the course of our history, we did ignore the stories of slaves. That's not something that we talked about readily in our history," Updegrove said.

But in Philadelphia in 2002, the publication of a monumental archaeological discovery just steps away from the Liberty Bell Center by independent historian Edward Lawler, Jr., would bring the legacy of slavery and Washington's role in it back to the forefront of America's consciousness.

Lawler's research, which was published in August 2002 in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, unearthed the foundation of Washington's home in Philadelphia, which was demolished in 1832, uncovering the layout, including the slave quarters.

Lawler's report, which led to a major excavation in 2007 at the site of the nation's first executive mansion, included the names of the nine men and women who were enslaved there by Washington: Austin, Christopher Sheels, Giles, Hercules, Joe, Moll, Paris, Richmond and Ona (Oney) Judge, the personal maid to Martha Washington.

"We found out that George Washington enslaved Black men, women and children there, and many of us were, like me, we in the African American community in Philadelphia, we felt betrayed," Coard said.

"I went to arguably the best school in the country, Masterman, and never heard about it. I went to America's first HBCU chain university, never heard about it ... born and raised in Philadelphia, never heard about it," Coard said. "It is because it was designed not to be discussed, not to be talked about, because that was a blemish on America."

A search for lost ancestry

Coard, who has roots in Virginia but grew up in Philadelphia, said that learning about the enslaved people who lived at the President's House struck a chord and fueled his own curiosity about his lost ancestry as a Black American.

Reflecting on his time in middle school at Masterman, Coard said that his best friend Michael was Italian American, whose fluency in his native tongue and strong connection to his roots and ancestry ignited a "latent jealousy" in a young Coard, who longed to learn more about his own ancestors.

"I had a kind of latent jealousy for Michael. Why? Because he could still speak the same language his great-great-great-great grandfather spoke in Italy," Coard said. "He could tell me in what state in Italy his great great grandfather was born, what city, what neighborhood, what street, what block."

But Coard, like many Black Americans whose ancestors were enslaved, said that he has no certain record of his own ancestry.

Pursuing what he called his own "amateurist research," Coard said the most he could learn was that there was an Englishman named William Coard in Virginia, where Coard's family is from, who purchased a boatload of enslaved Africans in the Richmond area in 1753.

"I haven't filled in the gaps," Coard said, wondering if being enslaved by William Coard could be how his ancestors acquired their last name.

According to researchers at the University of Southern California, enslaved Africans were "rarely included in any official records," leading to a "lack of ancestral information" for their descendants "spanning several centuries."

For Coard, preserving what little African Americans know about their ancestors has become his life's calling.

'The whole truth'

As Lawler's findings in 2002 fueled a robust movement to honor the enslaved men and women who lived in the nation's first White House, the Philadelphia attorney founded Avenging the Ancestors Coalition (ATAC).

For eight years, the group rallied city officials, politicians and advocates to petition the National Park Service and the city of Philadelphia to build a slavery memorial at the President's House.

"We came together and we said, this is outrageous that nobody is talking about this," Coard said. "And as so we begin to push and push and push."

The movement prevailed with the opening of the exhibit in December 2010. Its contents were a culmination of a robust collaboration between NPS officials, city leaders, historians and advocates, Coard said.

"The reason that these historically related institutions, whether it be museums or historic sites, are so important is because often it's the only time that the visitor will be engaged with that part of history," Updegrove said. "So it's so vitally important to get the story right. And getting the story right necessitates telling the whole story, not only from the perspective of a George Washington, but from the perspective of somebody who worked in that house."

"And I think they've done a marvelous job of doing just that [at the President's House]," he added.

But 15 years later, the future of the exhibit is hanging in the balance.

The Trump administration is seeking to replace the exhibit's panels, claiming the content is "divisive" and "disparages" George Washington. Meanwhile, Coard and his coalition are backing the city of Philadelphia's fight to preserve it.

Coard said that his group will continue to fight back.

"If you really claim to love America on the eve of the 250, you got to tell the truth," Coard said. "The whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that includes the good, the bad, and the ugly."

ABC News' Sabina Ghebremedhin and Jeana Fermi contributed to this report.