Who belongs in America’s story?

As battles over immigration, public institutions, national celebrations, and freedom of expression intensify, a deeper struggle is emerging beneath the headlines: who gets represented, remembered, welcomed, and heard.

In this Arts Freedom Weather Report, Bill Cleveland connects seemingly unrelated events—from the turmoil at the Kennedy Center and preparations for America250, to the FIFA World Cup, Pride festivals, immigrant-rights cultural organizing, and the rise of creative resistance networks. What emerges is a revealing pattern: artists and cultural organizers are increasingly finding themselves at the center of a national debate over identity, belonging, and democratic life.

Listen to discover:

• Why “belonging” may be the most important cultural and political battleground in America today—and how artists are helping communities expand, rather than narrow, the definition of who belongs.
• How creative action is evolving from expression to civic practice—with artists using festivals, public art, storytelling, music, and cultural organizing not simply to protest, but to build community, visibility, and democratic participation.
• What today’s conflicts over museums, national commemorations, immigration, Pride celebrations, and public institutions reveal about the larger struggle over America’s future story—and who gets to help write it.

Join us for a timely exploration of how artists, cultural organizations, and everyday citizens are using imagination not only to resist authoritarian pressures, but to create more welcoming, inclusive, and democratic communities.

Notable Mentions

People

Josef Palermo: The Kennedy Center’s first visual arts curator offers a detailed firsthand account of the institutional turmoil, political pressure, and operational disruption that followed changes in the Center’s leadership.

Angel Faz: Dallas-based artist and community organizer whose imagery has become one of the most visible artistic expressions associated with the No ICE in the Cup campaign.

Brandi Carlile: Grammy-winning singer-songwriter whose Be Human concert in Minneapolis raised funds for immigrant families while demonstrating how music can function as civic infrastructure and community-building.

Organizations & Initiatives

No ICE in the Cup: A growing network of artists, cultural organizations, immigrant-rights advocates, and community groups working across World Cup host cities to create welcoming, creative responses to immigration enforcement and public fear.

Free DC: An advocacy organization focused on protecting Washington D.C. home rule while building both political and cultural power through civic engagement and storytelling.

Beautiful Trouble: An international training network that teaches creative activism, strategic communications, and imaginative approaches to social change.

Center for Artistic Activism: An organization that helps artists and activists design creative interventions capable of producing measurable social and political impact.

Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop: A nationally respected literary organization that supports incarcerated writers through workshops, mentorship, publishing opportunities, and public engagement.

Cultural Institutions & Places

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts: America’s national cultural center and a focal point in current debates over artistic independence, governance, and public trust.

International Festival of Arts & Ideas: New Haven’s internationally recognized multidisciplinary arts festival. The 2026 season centers on questions of home, belonging, and community connection.

Events

America250: The official national commemoration of the United States’ 250th anniversary, prompting communities nationwide to explore whose stories are included in the American narrative.

FIFA World Cup 2026: The largest international sporting event in the world and a catalyst for cultural programming, public art, and debates over immigration, belonging, and freedom of expression.

No Kings: A nationwide series of public demonstrations supported by Indivisible and partner organizations, combining civic action, public gathering, music, and cultural expression.

Publications

What I Saw Inside the Kennedy Center: Josef Palermo’s detailed account of working inside the Kennedy Center during a period of political upheaval.

The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America — Sarah Lewis: URL not yet verified. Included because of its importance to the discussion of visibility, history, and democratic storytelling.

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Art Is CHANGE is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.

Hey, there. What if the struggle over our democracy isn't just political? What?

What if it's a struggle over who gets to belong in America's story and who gets to decide?

From the center for the Study of Art and Community, this is Art is Change, a chronicle of art and social change, where activists, artists, and cultural organizers share the strategies and skills they need to thrive as creative community leaders. I'm Bill Cleveland.

Welcome to the Arts Freedom Weather Report, our periodic look at the cultural weather where freedom of expression is under pressure, where artists and cultural organizations are being tested, and where imagination is being used not simply to resist the authoritarian onslaught, but but to build something more durable in its place. Now, over the past few months, a pattern has been emerging. At first glance, these stories seem unrelated.

A fight over the Kennedy center, arguments about immigration and the World cup, artists withdrawing from national celebrations, pride festivals expanding in some communities while being targeted in others. And libraries, museums, literary organizations, and public media struggling to defend both funding and independence.

But look more closely, and a common question begins to appear. Who gets represented? Who gets remembered? Who gets celebrated? Who gets welcomed, and who gets erased? In short, who belongs here?

The question is increasingly shaping the cultural landscape of the United States of America, and artists, whether they intend to or not, are finding themselves on the front line.

Let's begin in Washington, because Washington is not only a place where policy is made, it's where one version of our national story springs forth, invented or otherwise. For more than a year, we've been talking about the continuing turmoil at the Kennedy Center.

The latest chapter came when a federal judge ruled that actions taken by the Center's leadership after the political takeover violated the law ordering the removal of Donald Trump's name from the building and blocking plans that would have closed portions of the institution during a major invented renovation. But perhaps the most revealing account came not from a courtroom. It came from inside.

Joseph Palermo, the Kennedy Center's first visual arts curator, recently published a scathing account of what he witnessed after the leadership changed. Palermo described confusion, cronyism, stalled projects, and an institution increasingly consumed by political identity rather than artistic mission.

What makes his account important isn't that it's dramatic, which it is. It's that it's specific. For more than a year, we've talked about the Kennedy center as a symbol.

Palermo's Atlantic article reminds us that institutions are made of people. Curators, educators, technicians, administrators, artists, people just trying to do the work.

His account gives us a rare look at what institutional capture actually feels like from the inside.

And it raises a much larger Question what happens when cultural institutions stop functioning as public trust and begin functioning as political trophies? And that is not simply a Kennedy center question. It's a democracy question.

The same question appears in another place where national identity is being actively contested.

America 250, the upcoming celebration of our nation's 250th anniversary, has the potential to become one of the largest cultural initiatives in modern American history. The National Endowment for the Arts has launched multiple programs connected to the commemoration.

Communities around the country are beginning to plan exhibitions, performances, festivals, public art projects and historical programs. The opportunity is enormous, but so is the risk. Anniversaries are powerful things. They invite us to tell our stories about ourselves.

But which stories? Stories of triumph, stories of struggle, stories of exclusion, stories of possibility. The question isn't whether America250 will tell a story.

The question is whose story gets told and whose gets left out. The same question is now showing up in a very different arena. The FIFA World Cup.

Now, on paper, the World cup is exactly the sort of event artists love. International exchange, public celebration, local identity, cultural expression.

Every host city has commissioned artists, designed official posters, and developed cultural programming intended to showcase its unique character. But another story is unfolding alongside the celebration.

Human rights organizations have raised concerns that intensified immigration enforcement and visa restrictions are creating what some describe as a climate of fear around the tournament. At the same time, FIFA maintains strict rules limiting political expression inside the tournament venues.

Political banners, political messages, political displays which raise the question in the world of international sports what is not political? The result is a fascinating contradiction.

One of the largest international gatherings on earth is arriving at a moment when questions of freedom of expression, immigration, belonging and public identity are becoming increasingly contested. Which brings us to one of the most interesting cultural developments currently taking shape across 11 US cities. No ice in the Cup.

What began as a response to concerns about immigration enforcement is evolving into something larger.

Artists, neighborhood organizations, immigrant rights advocates, faith communities, cultural institutions, community organizers across multiple host cities as people are experimenting with artist design, posters, public art, cultural watch parties, rapid response networks, community storytelling projects, and public gatherings designed to make people feel welcomed rather than targeted. In Dallas, artist Angel Faz has created imagery that has become one of the public faces of the campaign. In New York, a no Ice in the cup.

You see soccer tournament under the banner. When communities come together, ice melts. Contrasted the exuberance of the beautiful game with the abject cruelty of the ice invasion.

But what makes no Ice in the cup interesting isn't simply that it opposes something is that it's trying to create Something the effort is less about confrontation than hospitality, less about outrage than belonging. The question driving the work is deceptively simple. What does welcome look like in a moment of fear?

And because the World cup will place an international spotlight on these communities, the answers may become part of a global conversation about immigration, public life, and democracy itself. The question, what does welcome look like? Is also being answered in communities around the country through local cultural action.

In Chicago, artists have become active participants in responses to immigration crackdowns, helping communities create visual language, public events, and cultural interventions that transform fear into visibility. Not random protest, organized dissent, art helping communities recognize themselves and one another.

In Los Angeles, mariachi musicians and ballet folklorical dancers have brought cultural traditions directly into demonstrations responding to immigration enforcement. The performances are not decorative. They're declarations.

Declarations that these communities belong, that their histories belong, that their culture belongs, that public space belongs to them as well. Minneapolis offers another version of the story.

Earlier this year, Brandi Carlisle's Be Human concert raised more than $600,000 for families affected by immigration enforcement activity. Please welcome Minneapolis own Singing Resistance. It's okay to change your mind so what's the courage? Leave this.

The event brought together more than 12,000 people and featured Minnesota's singing resistance. While fundraising was part of the goal, community was the larger one.

More recently, the no Kings gathering at the Minnesota Capitol demonstrated once again how music performance, ritual, and public assembly continue to function as democratic infrastructure. The old labor movement understood this. The civil rights movement understood this freedom songs weren't accessories, they were infrastructure.

Today's movements appear to understand that lesson well. And then there are the organizations that have been building that infrastructure year round.

In Washington D.C. free D.C. is working to protect home rule and local self determination. But what is striking about their work is that they explicitly describe their mission as building cultural and political power.

Not just political power, cultural power. The ability of communities to see themselves, tell their stories and shape their future.

In Philadelphia, the new Pride AF Festival, created by a coalition of participants jokingly called the Arts UN has assembled drag artists, musicians, cabaret performers, visual artists, and community organizers into a broad celebration of LGBTQ creativity and visibility.

The city of brotherly Love living up to its name. On this bright and sunny Sunday afternoon, the Pride march and festival brought a rainbow of colors to Center City. I love the energy.

I love that Philly is able to express themselves, you know, actually be able to come in an event and, you know, just be themselves, not be judged. Today just means love. Love trumps all.

The theme this year, Pride is power. My existence Is resistance right? Pride Month celebrations leading right into America's 250th anniversary celebrations.

Some participants say this year's event takes on a deeper meaning at a moment.

When queer expression is increasingly targeted. In some parts of the country, visibility itself becomes a civic act.

Meanwhile, in New Haven, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas is presenting more than 150 events under the theme Home, Belonging. Music, film, dance, theater, public conversations, community gatherings. Different disciplines, same question. Who belongs?

Not every response looks like a protest. Some look like a festival. Some look like a concert. Some look like a neighborhood gathering. But they're all working on the same problem.

How do we remain connected to one another in a moment designed to divide us? Part of the answer lies in institutions that are quietly investing in cultural infrastructure.

The Literary Arts Fund recently announced millions of dollars in support for literary organizations across the country, including independent publishers, writers organizations, and programs like the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. This may not generate headlines, but it matters. Stories need places to live. Writers need places to write. Readers need places to gather.

Democracy depends on those cultural ecosystems. And then there are organizations explicitly training people in the craft of creative resistance. Beautiful Trouble, the Center for Artistic Activism.

Groups that treat art not as decoration but as strategy.

Organizations teaching people how power works, how narratives shift, how public imagination changes, how creative action can produce real world outcomes. This may be one of the most important developments in the field.

Artists are increasingly moving beyond expression alone, toward intervention, toward design, toward civic practice, toward democracy is something that can be rehearsed. Which brings us to one final artist refusal.

This spring, Bret Michaels became the latest performer to withdraw from Freedom250 celebrations, joining a growing list of artists who concluded that participation would conflict with their values or lend legitimacy to narratives. And they did not wish to support whether one agrees with those decisions or not. They point to a larger reality.

Artists increasingly recognize that participation is political. The stage is not neutral. The banner behind the stage matters. The sponsor matters. The story matters.

And all of this brings us back to where we started, who gets to belong?

Because underneath the conflicts over immigration, festivals, museums, universities, public media pride, celebrations, national anniversaries and cultural institutions lies a deeper struggle, a struggle over who gets included in the evolving, continuing expression of the American story. The weather pattern I see is this. Some institutions are narrowing the field of acceptable identity. Artists and cultural organizers are expanding it.

Some forces are attempting to define belonging more narrowly. Artists are experimenting with ways to make belonging larger. Not perfect, not easy, not always successful, but real and increasingly visible.

Before we close, there are three things I hope you carry with you first, the most important arts based resistance happening right now is not simply oppositional. It's invitational. It creates spaces where people can enter, participate and recognize their own power.

Second, belonging is becoming one of the major battlegrounds of American democracy. Artists are increasingly among people helping define what belonging looks like. And third, democracy is not just defended in legislatures and courts.

It's rehearsed in public every day in festivals and concerts, in murals and libraries, in pride celebrations and neighborhood gatherings and community stories and songs. And sometimes in the simple act of making people feel welcome to when others are trying to convince them that they do not belong.

Thanks for listening, thanks for the work you're doing where you are, and thanks for staying in the conversation. I'm Bill Cleveland. This is Art is Change and this has been the Arts Freedom Weather Report.

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