<![CDATA[Multicultural BRIDGE

Town of Lee Invites Multicultural BRIDGE to Collaborate on “Voices of Freedom”
for Massachusetts 250

Community celebration brings together history, culture, artistic expression, and a call to imagine the next chapter of our shared future

LEE, MA — August 29, 2026 — As communities across Massachusetts commemorate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and the nation’s founding, the Town of Lee has invited Multicultural BRIDGE to collaborate on Voices of Freedom, a free multicultural community celebration on Sunday, August 30, from 2:00–4:00 p.m., at the First Congregational Church of Lee and the adjoining park and gazebo.

The collaboration continues BRIDGE’s mindful and intentional approach to Massachusetts 250. Following its community-based July 4 partnership with the Town of Great Barrington, BRIDGE is now working with the Town of Lee to use the 250th anniversary not simply as a commemoration of the past, but as another community-led opportunity to examine the history we have inherited, celebrate the many people and cultures that have shaped the American story, and contemplate together the new pathways we want to construct toward our shared future.

Voices of Freedom is intentionally designed as three things at once: a celebration, a historical lesson, and a call to action.

“We are grateful to the Town of Lee for inviting BRIDGE into this collaboration for a second year, following last year’s Voices and Votes program with the traveling Smithsonian exhibition,” said Gwendolyn VanSant, CEO and Founding Director of Multicultural BRIDGE. “As BRIDGE continues our Massachusetts 250 partnerships, we are being very mindful about what it means to commemorate 250 years. We want to celebrate, certainly, but we also want to learn together, tell a fuller history, and ask what this history calls us to do now.”

“We gather to acknowledge the time we are in, to examine the foundations that did not serve the livelihood or survival of future generations, and then to celebrate the culture, wisdom, resilience, and future that we will craft together.”

Remembering Who Expanded Freedom

Voices of Freedom begins with the understanding that the story of American democracy is not only the story of its original founders or founding documents. It is also the story of generations of people who insisted that the nation’s promises of liberty, citizenship, and equality become more expansive and more real.

From Phillis Wheatley and Elizabeth Freeman, through the resistance of enslaved people, Emancipation and Reconstruction, the Reconstruction Amendments, the Civil Rights Movement, and contemporary struggles for belonging and democratic participation, people originally excluded from the nation’s conception of freedom have continually helped redefine it.

The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments fundamentally reconstructed the Constitution, abolishing slavery, establishing national citizenship and equal protection, and protecting voting rights. The gains of Reconstruction were later deliberately undermined through political retreat, racial violence, and court decisions, but its constitutional vision endured and became foundational to later civil rights movements.

“People who were denied full participation in the original American promise have repeatedly been among those who expanded that promise for everyone,” VanSant said. “Their work is not a side story in American history. It is American history.”

Haiti and the Wider History of FreedomThe Haitian voices represented in Voices of Freedom also carry a distinctive history of liberation in the Americas.

Following the Haitian Revolution, Haiti declared independence in 1804 and became the world’s first independent Black republic, emerging from a successful revolution against slavery and French colonial rule.

Haiti’s revolution reshaped ideas about liberty, Black self-determination, and emancipation across the Atlantic world. Including Haitian music, language, faith traditions, food, and community voices in Voices of Freedom is therefore more than an expression of contemporary multiculturalism. It acknowledges an essential and often under-told history of freedom in the Americas.

From Commemoration to a New Future

VanSant returns to the Berkshires for the celebration directly from PolicyLink’s national call to action, “We Are the Founders,” where the invitation to see this generation as founders of the next chapter of American democracy affirmed BRIDGE’s hopes and approach for Voices of Freedom.

“In many ways, this inspiring experience validated our approach,” VanSant said. “We have been intentional about using these anniversaries not simply to commemorate history, but to ask whose stories are centered, how freedom has been expanded across generations, and what we are being called to build together now. PolicyLink’s national call to see ourselves as founders of the next chapter of our democracy feels deeply aligned with that work and is inspiring our team as our community gathers for Voices of Freedom. Join us!”
“As we celebrate our multicultural anniversary and our continuing pursuits of freedom, we want to contemplate what it means to construct a new future together,” VanSant continued. “We can honor what has come before us while recognizing that democracy has never been a finished project. Every generation inherits both its possibilities and its unfinished work.”
BRIDGE’s collaborative Massachusetts 250 programming considers how communities can continue to create new pathways toward a future rooted in dignity, belonging, cultural understanding, economic inclusion, civic participation, and equal regard.

“Our Haitian, Black, Latino, Indigenous, immigrant, multiracial, and multicultural communities are not outside of the American story,” VanSant said. “We are part of its making. Our young people are part of its making. Our elders are part of its making. And all of us have a role in determining what the next chapter will be.”

History Carried Through Culture

Rather than separating civic history from cultural life, Voices of Freedom brings history into conversation with the ways communities have always carried knowledge across generations: through storytelling, music, movement, food, faith, family, art, resistance, and joy.

The afternoon will feature BRIDGE Youth Corps, Women to Women, Gwuop Zanmi, Sister to Sister, Solidarity ArtsHub Artist-in-Residence Noel Staples- Freeman (Sister Noel) and other community artists and performers, with presentations on Phyllis Wheatley, Elizabeth Freeman, women’s voices and freedom, and cultural expressions from Africa and the African Diaspora, Haiti, Latin America, and African American traditions.

Additional artistic presentations will be led by Solidarity Arts Hub Co-Coordinators JV - Jayde Violet and Michelle France, bringing together history, artistic practice, cultural expression, and community participation.

Guests will experience music, dance, storytelling, singing, and community drumming, along with food representing several communities that make the Berkshires home, including authentic Mexican tamales, traditional Haitian dishes, and African American favorites from Momma Lo’s BBQ.

Traditional drums generously donated by Grace Church will be incorporated into the African Diasporic celebration and BRIDGE’s continuing community cultural programming.
“History lives in people,” VanSant said. “It lives in our language, our music, our bodies, our recipes, our families, and the stories we decide to carry forward. Voices of Freedom creates a place to bring those histories together — with scholarship and learning, but also with celebration and joy.”

A Community Collaboration

Voices of Freedom is made possible through collaboration among the Town of Lee, Multicultural BRIDGE, Mass Humanities, Massachusetts 250, Grace Church / First Congregational Church of Lee, Assemblée des Ministères Evangéliques, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Barr Foundation, participating artists, cultural groups, volunteers, and community partners.

For BRIDGE, these collaborations are part of a larger commitment during the 250th anniversary period to ensure that multicultural communities are not simply invited into commemorations, but participate in shaping how history is understood and how the future is imagined.

“Two hundred and fifty years gives us a remarkable vantage point,” VanSant said. “We can look back honestly, gather in celebration, and then turn toward one another and ask: What will we build from here? That is the invitation at the heart of Voices of Freedom.”

EVENT INFORMATION

Voices of Freedom
Sunday, August 30, 2026 | 2:00–4:00 p.m.
First Congregational Church of Lee & Park/Gazebo
Lee, Massachusetts
Free and open to the public

MEDIA CONTACTS

Gwendolyn VanSant
CEO & Founding Director, Multicultural BRIDGE
318-528-1011
registration@multiculturalbridge.org

Sabrina Touhey
Town of Lee
Sabrina.Touhey@lee.ma.us

ABOUT MULTICULTURAL BRIDGE

Multicultural BRIDGE is a Berkshire-based organization advancing racial justice, equity, cultural competence, community health, economic opportunity, and belonging through education, advocacy, cultural programming, civic engagement, and direct community services. BRIDGE works across sectors to build relationships, develop community leadership, and create pathways toward more equitable and inclusive communities.