The Peoria Riverfront Museum will represent Illinois with a pavilion on the National Mall as part of the upcoming Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., celebrating the 250th anniversary of American independence.
“The opportunity came to us as a private organization when there was nobody else to do it, and there was no funding for it at the state level,” said John Morris, the museum’s president and CEO.
“It’s not something we’ve done to buck the state, it’s something we’ve done proudly to represent the state. With information provided by the state’s official America 250 Commission, we volunteered.”
The Great American State Fair has come under scrutiny for its sponsorship by the Freedom 250 organization that has ties to the Trump Administration. Illinois is one of several states declining to provide an official representation at the 16-day event that begins Thursday.
Some other states with Democratic leadership have also declined to participate officially, and a concert series planned as part of the festivities was scrapped after several acts withdrew over concerns the event becoming partisan.
However, Morris stressed the museum’s participation is in no way staking a political position, but rather an opportunity to represent Peoria and Illinois on a national stage.
“There was no political considerations. There was no partisan interest,” Morris said in an interview with WCBU. “This is the nation’s National Mall, Great American State Fair, and that is why we said yes. We are proud to try our best to represent the great state of Illinois, which we of course believe is one of the most important in the history of the country.”
Morris said information he received indicates that Illinois passed on official presence for budgetary reasons, more so than Gov. JB Pritzker’s opposition to Trump. Morris also noted that only one state [Oregon] has explicitly cited political differences with organizers for declining to participate.
“The people who serve as governors or the people who serve as President of the United States are partisan; they are elected. But that is not our concern. It’s not our concern, the partisan politics,” said Morris.
“I am concerned that people perceive our participation in this to be partisan, because it is not partisan. There was no partisan motive for doing it. There is only the motive of being proud of our state and wanting to represent it at the official celebration on the National Mall.”
While Freedom 250 was set up a White House task force, the official America 250 Commission is a nonpartisan nonprofit established by Congress to oversee commemoration of the nation’s birth. America 250 is sponsoring its own event called America's Block Party.
“My understanding is America 250 is also involved with this Great American State Fair,” said Morris. “There are more than 100 different brands of celebration; each state has a logo, many organizations have various logos. To me, it was not about whether it was the White House and executive branch, or whether it was the congressional logo.
“Our intentions here have been good. I’m sorry if people perceive otherwise, that there is a partisan intent. There is not. That is not our mission. Our mission is to unleash the full talent and genius of every individual, not to be involved with partisan politics.”
Morris noted the museum has been participating in the U.S. Semiquincentennial celebration in several ways already, with the America 250 logo presented on the side of the building and the Promise of Liberty display featuring several major historical documents among eight total current exhibitions honoring the occasion.
“Anybody who’s been to the museum has seen what a phenomenal exhibition schedule we have,” said Morris. “We took up the mantle to try to do the right thing for the state. We really were trying to do the right thing for in a nonpartisan way on the national stage, and that’s as plain and simple as it gets.”
Morris said the museum’s exhibition in a 750-square-foot pavilion will feature a hologram box with a depiction of Abraham Lincoln and “stories about Illinois as the birthplace of the skyscraper, and the World Wide Web, and the richest farm ground on earth, and so forth.”
Morris said museum officials have been working with the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture in arranging their participation. He said there’s no fee for the museum to use the pavilion space, but they’ve budgeted as much as $500,000 for travel costs and other expenses related to transporting and maintaining the exhibits.
“We have received additional contributions over and above what our members give, and we are 100% privately funded operation,” he said, noting much of their anticipated costs have been covered through in-kind exchanges. “It’s also been met by contributions from generous people who wanted Illinois to be represented at the national level.
“We’re not writing a check to the administration; we’re not writing a check to Freedom 250 or America 250. This is about us providing for hopefully tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of grandmas and grandpas with kids touring the mall this summer. Our intent was to provide Illinois’ story in a national space, on the national stage, and not to affiliate with any kind of partisanship.”
