Join us for an evening of riveting storytelling, historical insight, and a deeper look at the power and fragility of free speech.

New Hampshire native Dan Billin worked as a newspaper reporter in the Granite State for seventeen years. His nose for a story and years of relentless research have brought to light a wealth of detail about the shocking and long-forgotten tale of Noyes Academy and the extraordinary Black students who dared seek an education in antebellum New Hampshire. He has now applied those same journalistic instincts to illuminating how putting the state motto, “Live Free or Die,” on NH license plates kicked off a battle over the First Ammendment.

In 1969, when New Hampshire officials decided to put the state’s motto – “live free or die” – on its license plates, many citizens viewed the act as an endorsement of the deeply unpopular war being waged in Vietnam and protested by covering up or altering the motto. In response, authorities cracked down hard: arresting, fining, and sometimes even incarcerating those who engaged in duct-tape dissent. People appealed their convictions, sparking a legal contest over the First Amendment that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. In this multimedia presentation, historian and former newspaper reporter Dan Billin tells a uniquely New Hampshire tale illustrating the genius – and the fragility – of the First Amendment.