A retired English teacher from Jacksonville is hoping to promote free speech on the city\u2019s downtown square.<\/p>\n
Pat Kennedy is inviting local residents to the northwest corner of the square, next to copies of the Bill of Rights, Constitution, and Declaration of Independence. He plans on holding events for people to voice their opinions on local, national and international issues on the first Tuesday of each month.<\/p>\n
Kennedy informally declared the corner of the square a \u201cspeakers\u2019 corner\u201d in July. He said he was inspired by a 1971 visit to London\u2019s Hyde Park, which has one of the world\u2019s most well-known speakers\u2019 circles.<\/p>\n
What made him set one up over 50 years after that visit was the \u201cinteresting state\u201d of the U.S. in 2026 and people\u2019s strong opinions on things like data centers, gas prices, and solar power, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell, as someone who goes out in public, the people feel very strongly about these things,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cAnd, more so than years past, that\u2019s become pretty important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kennedy\u2019s events have not been formally sanctioned by the city. However, he said freedom of speech means that he and others will be able to speak their minds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got the right to go down on the square and let people know this is what I think is going on,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if they want to get up and speak and say exactly the opposite, that\u2019s okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kennedy\u2019s first event will take place 10 a.m. on Oct. 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A retired English teacher from Jacksonville is hoping to promote free speech on the city\u2019s downtown square. Pat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-407568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}