S P R I N G / S U M M E R 2 0 1 8 5 in the preamble to the Conference program. “To endure, our democratic institutions must be validated by citizens who use their basic freedoms and have respect for others who do the same.” About 250 community leaders, residents, educators, students, legal professionals, elected officials, artists and members of the media heard directly from national and regional experts about the First Amendment’s vital role in ensuring thriving communities. Among the covered topics: how college students view basic freedoms; whether right-to-know laws enhance First Amendment powers; the role of artists in elevating free expression; how technology can advance or inhibit exercise of basic freedoms; and how communities can support press freedom in a period of unprecedented attacks against journalists and fact-based reporting. Venues for the two-day conference fit the agenda themes. August Wilson Center (right) with discussions of artistic expression and freedom of speech, and CAPA Pittsburgh, highlighting the need for student awareness and appreciation of First Amendment freedoms. April Ryan opens the conference with a discussion of threats to freedom of the press. She has covered four presidents’ administrations as aWhite House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks. In addition to sponsorship by the two foundations, the conference was presented in affiliation with Media Impact Funders, a national member-supported network of philanthropies that seeks to improve society through best- practice use of media and technology. Jeanne Pearlman, The Pittsburgh Foundation’s senior vice president for Program and Policy, says the conference is the launch pad for a year-long series of activities developed to generate civic dialogue on how people can respond affirmatively to threats to First Amendment freedoms. The Foundation and The Endowments will be working with grantees and donors, as  well as local and national collaborators, to design programs that assure that southwestern Pennsylvanians know about, and are prepared to assert, their First Amendment rights. FOR TIMES SUCH AS THIS, I THINK ABOUT THE FIRST AMENDMENT. BUT YOU DON’T REALIZE WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU UNTIL IT’S CHALLENGED OR IT’S GONE. April Ryan Jenni Monet, an award-winning indigenousrights journalist, was arrested in 2017 while covering the protest over the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. On day two of the conference, she speaks about violations of the freedoms of speech, assembly and treaty rights, which she says were rampant at the protests at Standing Rock.