National Constitution Center to explore changes wrought in 1968

The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia will host an exhibit about a pivotal year in modern American history.

“The 1968 Exhibit,” a traveling show created by the Minnesota History Center, focuses on that eponymous year when the Beatles released their eponymous album (aka “The White Album”) and the year when Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated.

The summer was shaken by the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and a Black Power salute at the Olympics. Cinema explored the dissidents of the past (“Bonnie and Clyde”) and the psychedelia of the future (“2001 Space Odyssey”).

“1968 was a pivotal year as ‘we the people’ pushed the boundaries of the Constitution and our freedoms, exercising our right to free expression, protest and petition in revolutionary ways,” said National Constitution Center interim president Vince Stango. “It was a year of extremes with both turbulent lows and spectacular highs.”

Opens in June

The exhibition, to open June 14, will include a reconstructed Huey helicopter — as it would have been when used during the Vietnam war — and a replica of the Apollo 8 space capsule, the first to orbit the moon.

The Constitution Center will add its own innovation to the exhibitions with an iPad tour, offering additional multimedia material to the physical displays.