Voices of Protest Exhibit at the Old South Meeting House in Boston

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Old South Meeting House Main Page

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Voices of Protest, an exhibit about the Old South Meeting House’s role in free speech issues throughout the history of America, is the main attraction at the church. The exhibit covers more than just the colonial protests that led up to the American Revolution, such as the Boston Tea Party, though a good deal of emphasis is put on this subject. It also covers free speech issues that resulted in the protests over the abolition of slavery, the Communist scare of the 1920s, women’s rights, birth control, and the 1950s Communist scare.

Voices of Protest Exhibit at the Old South Meeting House in Boston

The exhibits are mainly information panels comprised of historical photos and reprints of old newspaper articles, but there are a few artifacts and statues of individuals who became famous due to their involvement in various free speech issues.

Stature of Margaret Sanger, a proponent of birth control, at the Old South Meeting House’s Voices of Protest exhibit

It’s odd that the history covered seems to stop around 1950, yet there are plenty of newspaper articles from the 1990s. There is no mention of the Civil Rights movement, though this could be because the most important events took place in the South, and the Old South Meeting House played no major role.

Exhibit on free speech and civil disobedience at the Old South Meeting House’s Voices of Protest

SCHEDULING YOUR TIME

As with any exhibit, most people take a quick look around and are back out on the street in fifteen minutes. Not counting the actual text of the old newspaper article facsimiles, I read everything in Voices of Protest, plus took photos of the church, and was done in exactly an hour.

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