PEOPLE'S PETITION

A 45 ft interactive art installation for the African American Museum in Philadelphia

On December 30, 1799, Reverend Absalom Jones and seventy free Black men from Philadelphia submitted a petition to the United States Congress calling for an end to the transatlantic slave trade, protection for free Black people from kidnapping, and a future in which liberty and justice extended to all. Though Congress refused their appeal, the petition remains one of the earliest collective assertions of Black civic participation in the United States.

The People’s Petition extends that act into the present.

Through participatory technology, each visitor contributes a digital signature that joins an ever-growing procession across the installation. The work transforms an archival document into a living civic space where historical testimony and contemporary participation exist together. Every signature affirms that the questions raised in 1799 remain unfinished and that the responsibility to pursue justice belongs to every generation.