What price freedom?

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Dec, 1995

The New York Public Library, as part of its year-long centennial, is presenting "What Price Freedom," an exhibition that tells the dramatic stories of people who risked ostracism, imprisonment, and even death in pursuit of that ideal. The centerpiece is a 78-foot-long glass ark. Encased in it are 20 historic and contemporary images and objects--rare books, photographs, letters, handbills, and illuminated manuscripts--chosen from the library's research collections. Surrounding the ark, 40 contemporary voices and visions on video suggest the social and cultural storms that, even now, buffet the vessel of freedom.

Near the prow of the ark is a copy of the Declaration of Independence, handwritten by Thomas Jefferson; a broadside of Abraham Lincoln's second Inaugural Address; and a copy of Nelson Mandela's declaration from prison that reads: "I am not prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free." Other objects depicting the stories of freedom include a 15th-century Italian Passover Haggadah, opened to the commemoration of the Israelites' escape from slavery in Egypt; a 1989 handbill, proclaiming a hunger strike by pro-democracy students in Beijing's Tianan-men Square, thousands of whom were massacred; a medieval illuminated manuscript depicting the suffering of early Christian martyrs; a microfilm copy of the front page of the newspaper edited by Margaret Sanger, who was prosecuted for sending birth control information through the mail; an audio recording of the 1931 speech "I regard myself as a soldier of peace" by India's Mahatma Gandhi; a 17th-century book by Galileo defending Copernican theory, which lead to his arrest; and a pamphlet drafted by the pre-Civil War African-American abolitionist David Walker, who was killed in 1830.

According to Marie Salerno, the library's vice president for public affairs, "Please define freedom differently; it doesn't conform to neat contours. Those represented in the exhibition--writers, scholars, composers, choreographers, philosophers, playwrights, journalists, and political leaders--were chosen for the varied disciplines, cultures, and backgrounds they represent. They lend their unique perspectives to the past and continuing dialogues and debates about freedom." The exhibition will be on view at the New York Public Library's Center for the Humanities through Jan. 6, 1996.