New exhibition explores 250 years of American musical advocacy, from “Yankee Doodle” to Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Minneapolis”
WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. — The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music has announced details of Chimes of Freedom: Protest, Patriotism, and the Power of Song, the inaugural exhibition in the Center’s rotating gallery when the museum opens to the public on June 13, 2026. The exhibition will examine how music has shaped and reflected civic life throughout American history, tracing the role of songs in moments of protest, patriotism, mourning, activism, and social change.
The exhibition arrives amid renewed public discussion surrounding Bruce Springsteen’s newly released song, “Streets of Minneapolis,” which addresses ongoing immigration raids and protests in Minneapolis. According to the Center, the song represents the latest example in a long American tradition of artists using music to engage with current events and civic issues.
“Springsteen’s remarks fit within a long American tradition in which artists across the political spectrum have used music to advocate for causes they believe in,” said Robert Santelli, Funding Executive Director. “Whether listeners embrace or reject the message, the act of musical advocacy has consistently been part of how artists engage with the world beyond the studio and the stage.”
Chimes of Freedom will explore music’s enduring role as a force for education, expression, and change across generations and genres — from spirituals sung by enslaved people, to Revolutionary War songs, Civil Rights Movement anthems, anti-war protest songs, patriotic ballads, and contemporary calls for racial, social, and economic justice.
Some of the featured songs and themes in the exhibition will include:
- “Yankee Doodle” and music of the American Revolution
- “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and Civil War-era patriotism
- Woody Guthrie’s “Deportees (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)”
- Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”
- “The Ballad of the Green Berets” and pro-military popular music during the Vietnam War
- Edwin Starr’s anti-war anthem “WAR”
- Joni Mitchell’s environmental anthem “Big Yellow Taxi”
- Toby Keith’s post-9/11 anthem “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue”
- Lady Gaga’s LGBTQ+ affirmation anthem “Born This Way”
- Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Minneapolis”
The exhibition will also feature artifacts, photographs, audiovisual media, and interpretive materials contextualizing the role of music in public discourse across more than two centuries of American history.
One featured item will include some of the earliest handwritten lyrics preserved in the Center’s archives: Springsteen’s teenage anti-war song “All Man the Guns,” written during the Vietnam War era.
“Whether the songs, artists, and themes we cover in Chimes of Freedom express protest, patriotism, grief, or resolve, they reveal how deeply music has been intertwined with public life in the United States,” Santelli said. “The exhibition invites visitors to consider not only what artists say, but why music has remained such a powerful vehicle for civic expression across generations.”
The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music opens to the public on June 13, 2026, on the campus of Monmouth University. The new facility serves as the official repository for Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band materials while celebrating the broader history and diversity of American music through exhibitions, concerts, educational programming, and archival collections.
