Three hundred and sixty-seven years ago, a small band of men and women left behind their embattled city, struck out on their own, and created a new community. Guided by principles of fairness and individual liberty that would later find their way into the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they stood together to resist the social intolerance and government persecution of their time. Out of a wilderness, they built a village. Over the centuries, that village became the vibrant city we love.

Those of us who live and work in Providence feel a grateful

connection to our seventeenth century founding fathers and mothers. Indeed, all Americans owe them a debt for their visionary contribution to the principles of religious tolerance, free speech, and the right to self-determination. Honored more in the breach than in the observance in 1635, these ideas have since proven themselves among the most powerful forces for change in the history of humankind, capable of moving entire nations toward more humane, equitable and economically successful forms of society.