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In partnership with the League of Women Voters-Grand Traverse Area, Michigan Writers, and the Traverse Area District Library invite the public to copy by hand (yes, copy by hand) the entire Constitution of the United States.

Let’s go back to basics. What if we gathered as community members to participate in reclaiming the language, the very sentences, on which democracy was built? Let’s copy the US Constitution. Let’s get reacquainted with what the Constitution really says, heighten our consciousness of the principles of our primary document of democracy, place ourselves in closer kinship with those early writers and thinkers, and refresh our understanding of the core document of democracy. Why not get those words into our very fingertips? Join us.

Sounds like a big project? Turns out, our most important “rights document,” the Constitution of the United States, is a mere 7600 words including the 27 amendments. Inspired by a one-page article in the New Yorker about people who have hand-copied various “rights documents,” and one particular artist who has hand-copied the U.S. Constitution seven times, we propose to do the same, but in community, yes, all of sharing the task. Let’s join in this exercise of civic awareness.