In 2020, I made a documentary about Philadelphia’s 1976 Bicentennial celebrations. One detail that struck me was how visitors could once approach and touch the Liberty Bell. Our film team sifted through thousands of images, but one stayed with us: a black-and-white photo of a single hand placed on the Bell.

The moment held a story: History can be touched. The Liberty Bell — paraded around the country after the Civil War — stands for life, liberty, and the foundational ideal that we are “all created equal.” It’s the civic creed we strive toward. For years, to touch the Bell was to make an actual, physical connection with that story.

That changed in 2001, when someone wielding a hammer damaged Pass and Stow’s circa 1753 icon. The National Park Service promptly cut off that level of access. Today, visitors can no longer touch the Liberty Bell. But anyone can connect with the ideas behind the Bell in real life, because its meaning is still within reach: through action, presence, and curiosity.

There are other, powerful, small, essential ways to touch the Bell.

An offering and an invitation

Think of “touch the Bell” as a call to civic participation and local pride. To touch the Bell is to engage with, activate and reclaim our city’s history and cultural assets. Above all, these acts could help foster a deeper sense of belonging — just in time for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

To touch the Bell is to venture forward into a city that we make, as we move through, and discover it. It means finding something in the city — something you love or something you’re curious about, and going to it. Call it cultural enrichment or just a good excuse to be a tourist in your own town, but either way, it’s a hyperlocal invitation to rediscover a few of the histories that shape where we live.

Don’t worry about knowing every fact or conquering a checklist. Instead, let yourself wander into this wild, well over 250-year-old story and realize it still has something to say to us. Touch the Bell is an offering and an invitation to step out, look up, be open. It’s personal — and it’s bigger than us.

In these times, it’s easy to revert to lamenting what we can’t do. Touch the Bell invites us to do what we can: Show up; connect; wander; ask questions; explore.

Everyone can do it. Pick one or two things below, or better yet, find your own way and have fun with it:

• • Visit a museum you haven’t been to since you were a kid.
  • Walk through a park you’ve never visited.
  • Take your family to a cultural event, big or small.
  • Check out that landmark you always walk past.
  • Walk a block you’re curious about.
  • See the Liberty Bell — or, if the line’s too long, head to our well-pointed brick gem: Carpenters’ Hall.
  • Visit Philadelphia 250 and become a Phambasaddor, launched by the Philadelphia Visitor Center Corporation, to recruit over 10,000 everyday Philadelphians as ambassadors for the year-long events of 2026. These volunteers will help welcome visitors, share stories, and show off the soul of the city — offering real knowledge, warmth, and presence during one of the most significant anniversaries in our nation’s history. It’s a call to step up, represent, and help shape the way the world experiences Philadelphia. If that speaks to you — say yes. Philly needs you.
  • Register to Vote, help others to register — and then Vote! For 18+ youth: Vote that Jawn!
  • Join a tour: Millennials and Zohran Mamdani fans head to Beyond the Bell, while Philly die-hards go for Historic District walks with local storied giant Clark DeLeon.
  • Follow Touch the Bell on Instagram: Send photos and stories about creative ways you’ve connected or want to connect with the spirit of the Bell.

As we get closer to 2026, we have a chance to see our city with fresh eyes, and invite others to do the same. The way we show up for the Semiquincentennial is our way of showing the world what Philly really is. We’re not only the birthplace of liberty; we’re still building it.

To the skeptics inside us and everywhere else

To those who are skeptical, you have a right to be. Yeah, I get it, you can’t literally touch the Bell. That’s the point. What if we stopped waiting for permission to care and just … cared anyway? This isn’t about monuments. It’s about motion and meaning, and noticing what’s real in the city and participating.

To those who already love the Liberty Bell: You know what it stands for — freedom, defiance, possibility. This is one way to carry that spirit forward, even if we can’t lay our hands on the bronze, its emotional touch hasn’t been lost.

Two hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Declaration, Philadelphia didn’t rest on its history. City of firsts. City of futures. We showed up. We got to work. And when the world looked our way, they didn’t just see history, they saw hope. Block by block, heart by heart, a city came alive — and pointed forward.

To my fellow educators: Whatever we might call it, creative or lateral thinking — let’s bring history off the page and into real life. It’s not just facts and timelines. It’s about asking: What does freedom mean now? What does your voice look like in your city?

Ask students: “What does it mean to touch the Bell in their own way?” Let them choose a site, a project, or an idea to explore. They’re not just learning, they’re stepping into a story that still belongs to them.

Whether you’re leading a walking tour through Old City, designing a mural, or writing poetry about neighborhoods, you’re not just teaching history, you’re showing that the past is something we interact with, not just memorize.

To new Philadelphians — transplants, immigrants, students: This is your invitation into this story — not as a guest, but as a co-author. You don’t have to be born here to belong here.

Whether you moved here last month or last year, this isn’t just someone else’s history. You don’t need to know everything about 1776 or this city, you just need to find an access point and explore.

To my fellow placemakers, writers, and creatives: What do we do with icons too big to hold, but too important to ignore? It’s a prompt not a program, an open invitation to respond with your own tools, language, and voice. Reels and short films, zines, soundscapes, Instagram projects, pop-ups, performances — anything that bridges Philly’s past with the living present.

This is a defining moment: Our social faith is in crisis. It has survived many trials, but not quite like this. With striking irony, 2026 brings a perfect storm of converging forces — a stress test of immense consequence, arriving precisely during an anniversary meant to celebrate that very faith.

At the half-year mark before the yearlong semiquincentennial celebrations begin, my offering is less a solution than one of many practical, imaginative, and doable acts to seek out across a thread of many years, gestures to keep us rooted, and reaching as we go.

Looking past the past and beyond 2026

Fast forward, looking back on 2026, people will say that Philadelphia welcomed the world.

Here, neighbors gathered. Families joined in. Artists created. Children played. Business and cultural leaders joined hands with City leadership and electeds.

Two hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Declaration, Philadelphia didn’t rest on its history.

City of firsts. City of futures. We showed up. We got to work. And when the world looked our way, they didn’t just see history, they saw hope. Block by block, heart by heart, a city came alive — and pointed forward.

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