Public Humanities in the Foreground; 250th on the Horizon

In 2026, the United States will commemorate the 250th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This fact may not have been on your personal calendar, but for historians, history, and heritage organizations, as well as the United States Congress, a countdown has been underway for, in some cases, years. America250, a national effort, has been organizing "tentpole" programs to encourage people to share personal stories, engage in public service (and be recognized for it), and support young people to give voice to the question: What does the American Dream mean to you? The American Association of State and Local History published a set of themes and a field guide to provide scaffolding for the myriad national, state, local, and hyper local efforts to make meaning of this anniversary.

The themes proposed by the American Association of State and Local History for commemorating the 250th Anniversary - Unfinished Revolutions, Power of Place, We the People, American Experiment, and Doing History - provide onramps to engage in familiar stories and encourage people to hear familiar stories in new ways. I've been wondering which of these might most matter to commemorations in Illinois?

Earlier this year, I was appointed by Governor Pritzker to chair our state's 250th Commission. We're tasked with encouraging and promoting an inclusive statewide commemoration and are organizing ways to illuminate the rich and complex places, people, and histories that have shaped our state and our country. I look forward to sharing more about the 250th Commission and its vision in the coming months.

Interpreting what this anniversary should mean in terms of the story we tell ourselves about our state, or our country (aka "our national narrative") is no simple task. While the 250th provides an opportunity to illuminate founding principles of liberty and democracy, this same act requires that we also confront contradictions in this legacy that remain in our present: slavery, the displacement of Native Americans, and the ongoing struggle for universal civil rights. The public humanities are an essential element in what it will take to update our national narrative. In fact, they've already been doing the work.

Throughout Illinois, humanities organizations - libraries and archives, history centers, heritage sites, schools, and universities – are actively planning with their communities.

Illinois Humanities is supporting our statewide humanities community as a convener, connector, and clearinghouse, while also developing a series of free public programs. We held the first of a series of statewide gatherings at the Newberry Library earlier this month. It was a chance for organizations working at the intersection of history, culture, education, and the arts to have an initial opportunity to share plans and resources. Creating space to enable people to share ideas and concerns about the ways in which the Semiquincentennial anniversary is an opportunity to uplift undertold stories is something many of our partners are passionate about. You can stay tuned about upcoming gatherings here.

Illinois Humanities specializes in creating gatherings where we leverage the humanities to lift each other up as a way to shine a light on untold and overlooked stories. Our values call on us to be partner-centered and to create and protect spaces for challenging ideas. Rather than being in conflict, these values enrich the ways in which our public programs strengthen our civic fabric. The humanities help us to be more human by sensitizing us to complexity and nuance.

Just this month, the Gwendolyn Brooks Youth Poetry Awards celebrated the creativity and imagination of young poets across Illinois by bringing our youngest humanists together to share their original poems, views, and perspectives. When they join together, we have a microcosm of our state.