Assembly, America’s 250th, and the Future of Free Assembly
Dear Friends,
As we move closer to America’s 250th anniversary, the National Liberty Museum is continuing to explore one of our most essential, and often overlooked, freedoms: the freedom of assembly. Assembly is how people show up, organize, celebrate, protest, build community, and make themselves heard. It is also how we learn to live with difference. This month, our All About Assembly Speaker Series continues with an important and timely conversation on the role of assembly in the abortion debate. Abortion remains one of the most divisive issues in American life, and it has also been one of the clearest examples of how people use assembly to advocate, dissent, grieve, mobilize, and demand change. At NLM, we believe a museum should be a place where complex issues can be explored with seriousness, openness, and respect.
The Future of Free Assembly
This summer, we are also excited to open 2076: The Future of Assembly, the next installation in our exhibition series, The Forgotten Freedom: American Assembly at 250. As we look toward the nation’s 250th, 2076 asks us to imagine what assembly may look like fifty years from now. How will Americans gather in an increasingly digital world? What will it mean to come together across physical and virtual spaces? How will protest, celebration, civic participation, sports fandom, worship, performance, and community life evolve? The exhibition invites visitors to think not only about the history of assembly, but also about its future and the responsibility we all share in protecting and strengthening this freedom for the next generation.
A New Pop Up Exhibition
Assembly is not only about protest or politics. We are thrilled to launch Sports Jawn, a special pop-up exhibition made possible thanks to the generosity of the DePace Sports Museum. In Philadelphia, sports are one of the most powerful ways we gather. We come together in stadiums, living rooms, bars, streets, and neighborhoods; wearing our colors, cheering, arguing, celebrating, and sometimes grieving as one city. Sports Jawn will feature special Philly sports artifacts and remind us that assembly can be joyful, loud, emotional, and deeply communal. As we prepare to mark 250 years of the American experiment, I hope you will join us this June to reflect on the many ways we gather—and why showing up still matters.
With gratitude,
Alaine
