- The mobile exhibits will highlight the key people, places, and events that gave birth to American independence, and will stop at local libraries, schools, and community gatherings.
The Freedom 250 “Freedom Truck” made its first stop in North Carolina kicking off a nationwide tour of what organizers call the largest traveling exhibit ever focused on America’s founding, inspired by the 1976 Freedom Train. The project is part of a broader slate of patriotic initiatives tied to President Trump’s Executive Order 14189 marking the nation’s upcoming 250th anniversary.
US Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy led the recent Greensboro launch event.
“We have bumps in our road — maybe potholes, if you want to use a DOT analogy — in the history of America,” Duffy said in the speech at Revolution Academy, a charter school in the Triad town of Summerfield.
“We should acknowledge those potholes of history, and we should recognize that our country strove to get through those difficult times and make it better and brighter for everybody,” Duffy added. “But we have people who want to just focus on the negative. This is a time to focus on the true and accurate history of America.”
Duffy said one of the exhibit’s displays that caught his eye was a “wall of heroes” that allowed visitors to discover biographical details about individuals whose contributions in various fields helped put America on the map.
“It’s a montage of just great Americans, and you look at what America and its innovators and its artists and its poets, its creators, what it’s offered to the world, it is like nothing else in the world,” Duffy said.
“And those Wall of Heroes exist because of the freedom that this country has,” he added. “It’s the free enterprise that this country offers its people that has created the most remarkable men and women that are in the Wall of Heroes in this museum.”
In addition to Duffy, a former congressman and Fox News host, the event included representatives from the White House and Labor Department, as well as several private organizations that had partnered with the America 250 initiative to create the six “Freedom Trucks” soon to be touring communities across the United States.
“I really hope you remember this day for the rest of your life,” Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling told the audience. “It is very special because it represents a culmination of hard work, organization and imagination to make this truck a reality.”
Prager University and Hillsdale College, two groups that partnered with the Education Department to supply the content for the interactive exhibits, also had representatives on hand.
NASCAR magnate Richard Childress was there to help highlight the initiative’s local ties to North Carolina.
SPEVCO, a specialty vehicle company headquartered just west of Winston–Salem, was responsible for providing the vehicles themselves.
“They are double wide 18 wheelers designed to bring the remarkable story of American independence to students, families and citizens in every corner of our country,” said Brittany Baldwin, White House senior policy advisor for Freedom 250.
Baldwin and others noted that the idea of the “Freedom Trucks” was based in part on the “freedom train” featured during the 1976 bicentennial celebration.
“Each of us in our own communities — and our own circle of friends, family members, churchgoers and fellow workers — can think about how we can rekindle the fire of liberty to spark a flame in the hearts of students like those beautiful students here today, to inspire them to think, 15 years from now, to look back at this anniversary and think, ‘That was the moment I was proud to be an American,’” Baldwin said.
Revolution Academy students and parents, along with SPEVCO employees and media outlets, constituted much of the audience at Wednesday’s event.
The school incentivized student participation by offering special passes to those who toured the exhibit that would allow them perks such as a day to dress out of uniform. Yet, the visit also helped to reinforce some of the material they had covered in class.
“We are taking civics right now, so we’ve been learning all about how America came to be and the Constitution and stuff like that,” Revolution student Olive Crandall said.
Shyam Patel, a freshman and student ambassador at the school, said the Freedom Truck’s launch “gave me a different thought on how I see America” and had inspired him to deepen his understanding of US history.
His mom, Swati, noted that while the school had taken a field trip to Washington, DC, last year, the mobile museums would afford the same opportunity to students in communities farther afield, where access to cultural enrichment may be more difficult.
“We were really excited about it, that they brought this here, because not all the schools have a trip to DC, and they have incredible historical stuff there that everyone can see,” she said.
Dave Machado, executive director for the North Carolina Coalition for Charter Schools, said hosting Duffy, Childress and other luminaries undoubtedly was the biggest event, to date, for Revolution Academy, which opened its doors in 2020 with around 300 students and has since expanded to more than 1,000.
“I’m sure a lot of our charter schools in the state are very jealous right now,” Machado said.
He added that America 250’s decision to launch the mobile museum initiative at a charter school seemed a logical fit.
“People that are part of the school choice movement tend to be very patriotic, tend to be very involved in their family’s education,” Machado said. “So, to me, this is great collaboration between the school and in this freedom truck.”