​June 9 – July 9, 2026 | Rochester, NY - Chicago, IL

250 years in, we have lost the plot.
This summer, we went looking for it.
The system is broken. You feel it  in your paycheck, your community, your news feed, your gut.

It's time  we admitted to ourselves that more votes, taxes, and volunteering isn't going to make a difference.

So this summer, we hit road to dream a new future.

First, we listened and reflected upon what we care about. We heard many voices to discover where we agree.

This past summer we traveled into the heart of the nation,  to listen, and to dream a new moral vision for the nation in the National Assembly .

​Why now?


The 1% bought the country.

The courts. The media. The two-party system. The wealthiest sliver of Americans purchased the institutions that were supposed to protect and serve us. It wasn't a conspiracy. It was a business plan. And it worked.

Today, we are poorer, sicker, lonelier, and more divided, not by accident, but by design. Every institution has been turned against us.

The answer isn't another election. The answer is us, on the road and around the fire. We are not waiting for permission.
​
We are loving this country back together.

The Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage 101

A pilgrimage is an intentionally difficult journey of devotion, a bridge between the physical and the sacred, where the outer landscape mirrors the inner one. Pilgrims leave the familiar and surrender to something larger.
​
That's exactly what this moment asks of us.
This wasn't a protest. It's something deeper that takes spirit, sacrifice, and surrender.

A pilgrimage is an intentionally difficult journey. We left behind our normal life. We surrendered to something larger than ourselves.

Every great tradition has them. And every great turning point in this country began with pilgrimage: Selma, the March on Washington, the long walk of the suffragists.

The National Pilgrimage began June 9th in upstate New York, the recognized birthplace of democracy and traveled through the heart of the country: the Civil Rights South, the Great Plains, the Black Hills, Yellowstone, Minneapolis, and ended July 9th in Chicago.

We visited the places that made us who we are, the places we lost our way, and the communities the economy left behind. We ate together, camped together, argued, grieved, and laughed together. We filmed all of it.

​On July 9th, the anniversary of the 14th Amendment, we delivered the result to the nation - LIVE.

Live updates from the road:

Let's love this country back together.

The National Pilgrimage is a non-partisan initiative fiscally sponsored by The Outlands, a 501(c)(3) organization. Led by a volunteer team of artists, community leaders, and documentary filmmakers, the project generated a new moral vision for the United States of America through reckoning, relationship-building, and collective dreaming.

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