\u201cWhat makes it so special is that it\u2019s happening here in America\u2019s birthplace \u2013 the place where America\u2019s thought leaders are still talking,\u201d said Angela Val, the president and CEO of Visit Philadelphia, which is co-hosting along with TED. \u201cWe\u2019re continuing that conversation, and we\u2019re broadening what we\u2019re talking about: what democracy means in our daily lives, not only in America, but around the world \u2013 and what it means for us to keep it.\u201d<\/p>\n
An expected 1,700 attendees will find salon-style discussion groups and nourishment with distinctly Philadelphian flavors \u2013 from water ice to cheesesteaks and pretzels \u2013 \u201cso people really understand that they\u2019re here in Philadelphia,\u201d noted Val. In the spirit of democracy, those unable to walk in Benjamin Franklin\u2019s footsteps can still participate through another Franklin legacy \u2013 public libraries, many of which are partnering to broadcast TED Democracy at locations nationwide.<\/p>\n
Speakers include \u201clibrary champion\u201d Shamichael Hallman, a senior director at the Urban Libraries Council; AI ethicist Jen Golbeck, a University of Maryland professor; the \u201crecovering politician\u201d and political theorist Terrell Bouricius, late of the Vermont legislature; the \u201creparations architect\u201d Aria Florant, who teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School of government; and Tami Pyfer, a longtime Utah-based public servant who co-created the Dignity Index to measure civility in speech.<\/p>\n
The event will also feature written reflections from Americans without such lofty platforms. Last year, Visit Philadelphia\u2019s \u201cDear Democracy\u201d initiative launched a traveling van from the National Constitution Center for a year-long road trip to collect ordinary Americans\u2019 thoughts on government and society. The vehicle made stops in such locations as Lancaster, New York\u2019s Stonewall National Monument, Atlanta\u2019s civil rights landmarks and Chicago\u2019s Navy Pier, \u201cbringing the voices of the country into the conversation,\u201d said Val.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/headline_Elevated-Angles-for-VISIT-PHILADELPHIA.jpg\")
\nThe Dear Democracy truck sets off from Philadelphia for a year-long, grassroots survey of American democracy. Photo credit:\u00a0Elevated Angles for Visit Philadelphia<\/p>\n
This weekend marks the culmination of a two-year partnership with the TED organization, timed to the semiquincentennial, that brought the TED Democracy Speaker Series to Philadelphia\u2019s Avenue of the Arts for periodic examinations of our civic moment. That moment has, for many, felt increasingly fraught, as a polarized and increasingly violent political climate, war and rising economic insecurity have complicated the conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 250th anniversary of our country in Philadelphia is weighty,\u201d observed the Bucks County-based media consultant and commentator Sally Kohn, another speaker. \u201cThe bar is higher; the meaning of the moment is higher.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Val, the pessimism that many feel about the current state of American democracy has only made the long-planned convening more critical. \u201cAmerica is a work in progress,\u201d she opined. \u201cDemocracy has been the foundation of allowing us to take those leaps forward, but also back \u2013 to examine ourselves and make changes.\u201d<\/p>\n
One participant with historical perspective is Donna Frisby-Greenwood, a senior vice president at the Pew Charitable Trusts, which is a lead supporter of the event. Thirty-some years ago, during the peak of the MTV era, Frisby-Greenwood led the youth democracy organization Rock the Vote; on Saturday, she\u2019ll join Rock the Vote\u2019s current president, Carolyn DeWitt, to reflect on that groundbreaking get-out-the-vote effort, its legacy \u201cand how it continues to engage young people in the political process today, but in a different way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Pew Research Center President Michael Dimock will be among TED Democracy\u2019s featured speakers, and experts from Pew\u2019s Philadelphia Research and Policy Initiative will be on hand to share local insights on how democracy has played out in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, looking at trends around such data as median incomes, demographics and housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re nonpartisan, TED is nonpartisan, and Visit Philly is nonpartisan,\u201d said Frisby-Greenwood. TED Democracy \u201cis an opportunity to bring these three nonpartisan institutions together to really talk about where we\u2019re headed as a country \u2026 to hear different perspectives. And, hopefully, for all of us to find common ground.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two hundred and fifty years after the Founding Fathers gathered in Philadelphia to wrangle a nascent democracy, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4000,6033,69,71,70,7803],"class_list":["post-215907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-america-250","tag-culture","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}