We The People Stories
We The People Stories
The National Constitution Center invites you to participate in a national conversation about the Constitution, its history and its contemporary relevance. Our programming features nationally recognized leaders debating and discussing the Constitution, our rights and responsibilities as citizens, ...
The Amazing Journey of American Women
The National Constitution Center presents New York Times columnist Gail Collins in a discussion about her book, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present. Collins traces the experience of American women from ...
A Moderated Conversation on Health Care
The effort to reform the nation’s health care system is at the center of a serious and sometimes heated national debate. As Congress and the Obama administration struggle to agree on the nature of reform, the National Constitution Center hosts a ...
A Right to Marry? Same-Sex Marriage and the Constitution
In November, 2008 California voters approved the Proposition 8 ballot measure, amending their state Constitution to ban marriages between same-sex couples. With a potentially precedent-setting legal challenge to Prop 8 working its way through the federal ...
Taylor Branch: The Clinton Tapes
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch discusses his account of President Bill Clinton’s confidential diary project conducted between 1993 and 2001. The Clinton Tapes provides a glimpse into the thought process and concerns of a sitting ...
A Supreme Court Preview: Changing Court, New Controversy
Each new term of the Supreme Court brings fresh controversy to the Justices, and that pattern will be followed as the Justices return this fall from a summer recess. The Court that has reassembled is itself "new," joined by Sonia Sotomayor, the first ...
A Supreme Court Preview: Changing Court, New Controversy
Each new term of the Supreme Court brings fresh controversy to the Justices, and that pattern will be followed when the Justices return this Fall from a summer recess. Already, the Court has agreed to resolve nearly four-dozen significant legal disputes. ...
The Presidential Elections in Afghanistan and Iran
2009 is and continues to be the International Year of the Election. Elections in Iran in June and their aftermath caught the world’s attention, while in August, Afghanistan’s presidential elections since the Taliban era has raised important questions ...
Tom Ridge: The Test of Our Times
Governor Tom Ridge joins the National Constitution Center to discuss The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege…And How We Can Be Safe Again, a memoir of his time as secretary of Homeland Security. Writing with praise and criticism for both Democrats ...
Into the Open: Architects in Conversation
The National Constitution Center, in partnership with Slought Foundation and the Community Design Collaborative, presents a dialogue between designer Teddy Cruz, whose photo narrative of the U.S.-Mexico border has been prominently displayed on front lawn ...
The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson and the Concert That Awakened America
2009 marks the 70th anniversary of one of the most dramatic concerts in American history: world famous African American contralto Marian Anderson’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. In a conversation moderated by scholar Sheldon Hackney, ...
The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson and the Concert That Awakened America
2009 marks the 70th anniversary of one of the most dramatic concerts in American history: world famous African American contralto Marian Anderson’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. In a conversation moderated by scholar Sheldon Hackney, ...
Founding Principles: The French Connection
The National Constitution Center welcomes Visiting Scholar A.E. Dick Howard, White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Virginia School of Law, for a discussion about the founding periods in France and America, ...
The States of the Economy
The National Constitution Center hosted a unique public program, in partnership with the National Conference of State Legislatures, examining how states have responded to the current economic crisis. In particular, this discussion addresses the varied ...
A Supreme Court Review
Supreme Court correspondent Lyle Denniston leads a discussion with Miguel A. Estrada, partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and former Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States, Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor and ...
Life, Liberty and Property: Four Years After the Kelo Decision
A conversation about Kelo v. City of New London four years after the Supreme Court's highly controversial 5-4 decision involving the use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another to further economic development. Since the 2005 ...
The Food of a Younger Land
Award-winning New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America. In the 1930s, with the country gripped by the Great Depression and millions of Americans struggling to get by, President ...
Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson
With the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states' rightsbecame the seventeenth president of the United States. In a surprising turn of events, Andrew Johnson was charged with the reconstruction ...
Ida B. Wells and the African American Freedom Struggle
Historian Mia Bay and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Pamela Newkirk discuss the extraordinary life of Ida B. Wells, a fearless anti-lynching crusader, women’s rights advocate, journalist, and public speaker. Her refusal to accept any compromise on ...
The Culture That Gave Rise to the Current Financial Crisis
The Seventh Annual John M. Templeton, Jr. Lecture on Economic Liberties and the Constitution considers the social, cultural, and moral causes of the current financial crisis in the United States. To address these, and other related issues, the Center ...