The Friends of Madison will be hosting a New Hampshire Humanities program, Live Free or Die, presented by Dan Billin, on Thursday, September 19 at 7pm in the Chick Room.
In 1969, when New Hampshire officials decided to put the state’s motto – “live free or die” – on its license plates, many citizens viewed the act as an endorsement of the deeply unpopular war being waged in Vietnam and protested by covering up or altering the motto. In response, authorities cracked down hard: arresting, fining, and sometimes even incarcerating those who engaged in duct-tape dissent. People appealed their convictions, sparking a legal contest over the First Amendment that went all the way to the United States’ Supreme Court. In this multimedia presentation, historian and former newspaper reporter, Dan Billin, tells a uniquely New Hampshire tale illustrating the genius – and the fragility – of the First Amendment. All are welcome.