CHICAGO (June 12, 2006) - Are you ready to give us a piece of your mind? Express your pet peeves and political passions, and practice your best heckling voice because on July 29, 2006, the Newberry Library welcomes back the Bughouse Square Debates to Chicago's Washington Square Park.
"Bughouse Square was once the nation's leading center for one of America's most cherished and contested civil liberties - free speech," explained James Grossman, vice president for research and education at the Newberry Library.
This year's debate topics include immigration and human rights, the "Da Vinci Code", and health care for all. The debates include informal soapbox speeches and a main debate. Heckling the soapbox speeches is encouraged. The main debate this year will focus on democracy in the age of terror. The festivities will also include an open mic session and musical performances. Patrick Butler, vice president of the International Center for Journalists, will serve as master of ceremonies.
Along with Bughouse Square, the Newberry Library's Annual Book Fair will be held inside the Library's main floor lobby. The books will be sorted into more than 50 categories and replenished continuously throughout the weekend to provide the best selection. The four-day book extravaganza starts Thursday, July 27 and ends on Sunday, July 30.
The main debaters are Michael Silverstein and John Cox. Silverstein is a professor of anthropology, linguistics and psychology at the University of Chicago. Cox is a 2008 Republican candidate for President and the founder of Restore Trust, a conservative anti-corruption civic organization. Dr. Erwin Lutzer of Moody Church, Dr. Quentin Young, Emma Goldman (Paige Phillips), and Clarence Darrow (Warren Lemming) are just a few of the many scheduled soapbox speakers.
As part of the festivities, the Bughouse Square Committee will present the John Peter Altgeld Award for courageous advocacy of freedom of speech to the American Library Association.
Diane Ciral, Bughouse Square Committee chair, said the ALA was chosen, "Because of its bold, principled defense of the freedom to read, think, write, and speak over many years."
Previous award recipients include Kathy Kelly, Leon Despres, Lila Weinberg, and Seymour Simon. University of Chicago Law School professor Geoffrey Stone, author of a book about freedom of speech in wartime, will present the 2006 award. The award is named for John Peter Altgeld, governor of Illinois from 1893 to 1897, who is best remembered for championing labor reform and pardoning three men convicted for the Haymarket bombing.
The festivities are scheduled from 11 am to 6 pm on Saturday, July 29 in Washington Square Park. The park is directly across the street from the Newberry Library located at 60 West Walton Street between Clark and Dearborn.
About Bughouse Square
Bughouse Square became a bastion of free speech around 1915 as the once ritzy mansions surrounding the park were converted to boarding houses. Writers and immigrants began gathering at the park on warm evenings to speak and debate. The park had its heyday in the 1920s and '30s when poets, prohibitionists and fundamentalist Christians spoke atop soapboxes to the gathered crowds. Some of the best-known speakers came from the revolutionary left including the Industrial Workers of the World. Although public speaking continued at the Bughouse Square until the 1960s, the park went into decline between the world wars when police cracked down on suspected radicals and socialists. The Newberry Library revived the Bughouse Square Debates in 1986.
About the Newberry Library
The Newberry Library is an independent library open to the public for research and reference in the humanities. One of the largest independent research libraries in the United States, the Newberry holds an extraordinary collection of about 1.5 million books, 5 million manuscript pages, and more than 300,000 historic maps. As one of the world's leading repositories of a broad range of books and manuscripts relating to the civilizations of western Europe and the Americas, the Library acquires and preserves research collections of such materials and provides for and promotes their effective use by a diverse community of users. Visit the Newberry online at www.newberry.org.