A walk through the Constitution Center’s new First Amendment Gallery

Footage of the historic civil rights March on Washington. Photos of AIDS activists protesting for survival, and women walking for equal rights. Documents written by the Founding Fathers on freedom of religion. Newspaper front pages that made history.

All that and more awaits visitors to the National Constitution Center’s new First Amendment Gallery. The second-floor exhibit, which opened Sept. 6, coincides with the 20th anniversary of the center’s opening.

The gallery, housed in one large room, is divided into five areas, each devoted to one of the First Amendment freedoms: religion, speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition.

“It’s so exciting to open the first permanent addition to the NCC’s core exhibit since we opened 20 years ago,” said center president and CEO Jeffrey Rosen. “The gallery is so inspiring in bringing to life the history of the five freedoms of the First Amendment and why they matter so urgently today through personal stories, artifacts, and interactives.”

Depending on how you enter the gallery, this will probably be the first exhibit you see. A screen plays footage from several protest marches — the 1963 March on Washington, demonstrations by Native Americans, women, AIDS activists.

In this station of the gallery, visitors get a view into some of many human right battles fought in the U.S., particularly in the 20th century.

There is a pamphlet from Philadelphia’s 4th Annual Remember Day in 1968 and some of the earliest LGBTQ rights demonstrations, and a pennant from the March on Washington. There’s memorabilia from both sides of the unsuccessful fight for a women’s Equal Rights Amendment.

The development of religious freedom from the country’s earlier years, and the push and pull between tolerance and discrimination, are documented in the “Religious Liberty” section. Visitors will learn, for example, that all states included some provision for religious freedom in their earlier constitutions, but it was not uncommon for them to limit elected office to people of the Christian faith.

A must-see here is the copy of the textbook used by Tennessee teacher John Scopes, who was arrested in 1925 for teaching evolution, leading to the famous Scopes Monkey Trial.

Visitors can test their knowledge of how the courts ruled through various volatile chapters in U.S. history, in the Freedom of Speech section. Expect to be quizzed on the fear of Communism, World World I, flag burning, and the Vietnam War. The answers may come as a surprise.

Among the artifacts are a draft of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis’ famous opinion in the Whitney v. California case, and an inscribed pen gifted to socialist and trade unionist Eugene V. Debs.

In the 1927 Whitney ruling, the court found that states could constitutionally prohibit speech that tended to incite crime, disturb public peace, or threaten the overthrow of the government by unlawful means. The decision was eventually overturned, but Brandeis’ powerful words in support of the First Amendment had a lasting impact:

“Freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth.”

Part of what is especially fascinating about this section is much of it is told through the struggles of individuals who tested the limits of freedom of speech. Through their wins and losses the freedom we now have was built. In this part of the gallery, you meet some of them and learn their stories.

You can’t miss the 1971 front page of the New York Times with its Pentagon Papers story — leaked documents that revealed our government’s covert military activity in Southeast Asia.

There is also a front page of the Louisville Examiner, an antislavery publication printed in the pre-Civil War South. There are replicas of some big headlines of the past, like the United States’ landing on the moon. For some people visiting the exhibit, these may be events they learned about in textbooks; it’s different seeing them with the urgency and immediacy of a newspaper’s front page.

In this gallery, keep an eye out for an old bullhorn, actual petitions from the 19th century, and other tools of redress. It becomes quickly apparent that many of the people fighting for justice in our past — people of color, women, immigrants, the poor — are still fighting now.

The Constitution Center will be holding a number First Amendment events throughout September. There will be a National First Amendment Summit on Sept. 13, featuring a keynote conversation with free speech advocate and author Salman Rushdie.

Constitution Day celebrations this year include free admission on Sept. 17 and 18, and special programming on Sept. 18 featuring First Amendment activists and historical figures, a virtual scholar exchange, and Kids Town Hall programs. There will also be traditional Constitution Day activities like the reading of the Preamble, signing of the center’s giant Constitution, and hosting of a naturalization ceremony for 50 immigrants who are becoming U.S. citizens. That evening, the center will host an America’s Town Hall program: The History of Religious Liberty in America.

More information about the events and programs is available on the center’s website, https://constitutioncenter.org/.