Pro-Vietnam-War Demonstration, New York, 1970,\u00a0Benedict J. Fernandez, 1970, Museum of the City of New York, 99.150.15<\/p>\n
The Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) announced\u00a0Raise Your Voice: New York Activism, a new permanent exhibition opening Friday, September 25, with a press preview on Tuesday, September 22. The exhibition is the inaugural show of the newly established Puffin Foundation Center for Social Activism, a new home at the Museum dedicated to the history and ongoing legacy of civic engagement and social movements in New York City.<\/p>\n
Raise Your Voice\u00a0traces more than 250 years of activism in New York, from the earliest 17th-century petitions to the mass mobilizations of the 21st century, organized around four tactics that generations of New Yorkers have used to drive change: demonstrations, organizing, art and media, and direct action.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the earliest days of this city, New Yorkers have gathered, organized, and spoken out to demand a better city,\u201d said\u00a0Stephanie Hill Wilchfort, Ronay Menschel Director and President of the Museum of the City of New York.\u00a0\u201cRaise Your Voice\u00a0and the Puffin Foundation Center for Social Activism give that long history a permanent home at our Museum, and remind every visitor that they, too, are part of that story. We are deeply grateful to the Puffin Foundation for its generous support in making this new center possible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A History Told in Four Tactics\u00a0<\/p>\n
Raise Your Voice\u00a0is organized into four sections that follow how everyday New Yorkers have sought change over time:<\/p>\n
Demonstrations\u00a0traces the evolution of more than 20 protests, from the colonial era to the new millennium, showing how demonstrations grew from small, spontaneous gatherings into large, organized mobilizations. Objects on view depict or were used at these events, including a noisemaker from the Civil War\u2013era draft riots, a woman\u2019s suffrage banner and sash, a 1947 painting by Peter Hopkins of communists and police clashing in Union Square, photography from the first Pride march in 1970, and a collection of protest flyers.<\/p>\n
Organizing\u00a0looks at the often-unseen groundwork behind activism: the planning meetings, notebooks, and campaign strategies that turn causes into movements. Highlights include more than 150 years of political campaign buttons, strike pledge cards from the Longshoremen\u2019s Association, Gloria Steinem\u2019s address book from her decades in the women\u2019s liberation movement, and a sketchbook by artist Molly Crabapple, who documents activist meetings and campaigns across issues.<\/p>\n
Art and Media\u00a0explores how New York\u2019s role as a global art and media capital has shaped activist movements, from nineteenth-century political cartoons to postwar conservative publications like\u00a0National Review. Posters and paintings by artists including Ben Shahn, Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, and Nicole Eisenman show how artists have used their platforms to advance causes. The section also includes a music interactive, letting visitors listen to a selection of activist music from the 20th century onward. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Direct Action\u00a0examines how activists have worked outside official systems to make change, from early 20th-century photographs of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York\u2019s public health initiatives to images of the 1964 civil rights school boycott. Objects include a dress worn during a 2025 ICE protest in Lower Manhattan, photographs by Young Lords photographer Hiram Maristany depicting the 1969 \u201cgarbage offensive,\u201d and ephemera from mutual aid organizations throughout New York\u2019s history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cActivism doesn\u2019t just happen \u2014 it\u2019s built, meeting by meeting, flyer by flyer, march by march,\u201d said\u00a0Elisabeth Sherman, Robert A. and Elizabeth Rohn Jeffe Chief Curator and Deputy Director, Museum of the City of New York.\u00a0\u201cThis exhibition lets visitors see the full machinery behind that work, and honors the generations of New Yorkers, famous and unknown, who built this city\u2019s long history of activism.\u201d<\/p>\n
A final section,\u00a0Your City, Your Move, invites visitors to engage with these tactics directly through three interactive features: a poster-making station lets visitors get creative with symbols and text to express issues that matter to them; a digital interactive shows how to address problems in their own neighborhood; and visitors over 18 can register to vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew York\u2019s density and diversity have always made it fertile ground for people to organize around a cause,\u201d said\u00a0Sarah Seidman, Puffin Foundation Curator for Social Activism, Museum of the City of New York.\u00a0\u201cThis exhibition traces that history through the objects activists actually used \u2014 the flyers, the banners, the megaphones \u2014 to tell the stories of activist campaigns through the tools of the people who lived them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Raise Your Voice: New York Activism\u00a0is made possible by The Puffin Foundation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
About the Puffin Foundation Center for Social Activism\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Puffin Foundation Center for Social Activism is a new, permanent home at the Museum of the City of New York dedicated to the history and ongoing legacy of civic engagement and social movements in New York City.\u00a0Raise Your Voice: New York Activism\u00a0is its cornerstone exhibition, succeeding the Museum\u2019s long-running exhibition\u00a0Activist New York, which closed on July 19 to make way for this next chapter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
About the Museum of the City of New York<\/p>\n
The Museum of the City of New York explores the people, places, and ideas that shape New York\u2019s iconic character. We invite New Yorkers and visitors alike to discover their place in the city\u2019s evolving story.<\/p>\n
The Museum is located at 1220 Fifth Avenue. Public hours are Monday\u2013Friday, 10:00 a.m.\u20135:00 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 a.m.\u20136:00 p.m. MCNY is pay-what-you wish for New Yorkers, and free to those under 18. The Museum is free to all visitors on Wednesdays.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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