What Would Roger Williams Do?

New and Dangerous Opinions, an exhibit at the Roger Williams National Memorial, reveals how the Rhode Island founder's ideas are more relevant than ever

Photo by Tony Pacitti

Our city’s founding father, Roger Williams, was a bit of a forward thinker for his day. He thought that church and state should be mutually exclusive, that the native inhabitants of the New World deserved to be treated as equals and that every man and woman should be allowed to worship any way they liked. Indeed, some of the United States’ core values as outlined in the Bill of Rights originated a century earlier than that document’s signing right here in Rhode Island.

The Roger Williams National Memorial recently unveiled its new permanent exhibit, New and Dangerous Opinions, to frame Williams’ liberal philosophies within a contemporary context. Debates that have defined our modern culture appear alongside examples of Williams’ advocacy for liberty of conscious and civil equality. The pairing illustrates how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go, and serves as a reminder that as long as people are willing to fight for it, progress will always be possible. 282 North Main Street.