Ken Burns Celebrates Lexington's 250th With Exclusive Documentary Screening and Panel

"It falls back on us to understand exactly what the nature of this experiment was. This is the most important event of the last 2000 years: the formation of the United States. It is as we just said and as you just heard, the most consequential revolution in history. And to be informed about its interiors, as mysterious as they might be or as distant as they might seem, is actually to gain a purpose on what's happening now." - Ken Burns

Legendary filmmaker and documentarian Ken Burns visited the town of Lexington on April 17 to preview clips from his new documentary. The American Revolution is a thrilling six-part series about America's founding and is set to air on PBS this November. The screening aligned with the historic 250th Anniversary of The Battle of Lexington, an exciting fact not lost upon the residents and students from surrounding schools who excitedly filled the venue. The film is almost a decade in the making, exploring America's founding from an in-depth and fresh point of view. The 5-time Emmy winner teamed up with Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt to bring history to life amidst history in the making. Burns and Botstein stopped by Cary Hall with historian and talking head in the series, Rick Atkinson, to delve deeper into the significance of The American Revolution.

Select Board Chair Doug Lucente and Select Board Members Jill Hai, Joe Pato, Mark Sandeen, and Vineeta Kumar presented Burns with a historic flag that flew over Lexington Green on April 16, 2025 to honor the documentarian's visit. Then, School Superintendent Dr. Julie Hackett introduced Burns and celebrated the town's educational system, noting the student project displayed beneath the stage of tricorne hats that represent political movements, like The Revolution, throughout history. She led the hall through an interactive exercise where she asked each student to close their eyes and picture themselves back here in 25 years celebrating the 275th anniversary, which inspired them to absorb the significance of this event in the larger historical context.

Burns took a moment to introduce the screening. He infused his speech with humor by joking about how he always wished he was from Lexington and brought the venue back to the exercise by expressing how some in this room would have the opportunity to attend the 300th celebration. He weaved a story of purpose, demonstrating how documentaries preserve the moments that led us to the present and lead us to the future. The screening featured 40 minutes from the series and effortlessly balanced heartwarming memories with devastating and raw moments.

After the screening, Burns, Botstein, and Atkinson engaged in an insightful panel that demonstrated their contagious passion for the subject. An often overlooked part of history is the crucial role Native Americans played in The Revolution. The beginning of the documentary honors the Six Nations that had divided loyalties, and what that meant for the course of war.

"It's [also] a civil war within Native American tribes here. The Six Nations of the Iroquois and upstate New York got along famously until the American Revolution, and then they had to pick sides. And so you have four of those six tribes aligned with the British, two aligned with the American rebels. So all of those stories have been historically under-told and need to come to the forefront more than we have previously." - Rick Atkinson.

The commitment to holistic storytelling is in the DNA of the series. Different talking heads from historians and quotes from figures like Abigail Adams, Lucy Knox, and Hannah Winthrop invest in perspectives that make up invaluable parts of the bigger picture.

"The past is our greatest teacher. Human nature, for the most part, never changes...no one event has happened again, but it rhymes. And in the work that we've pursued over the last decades, it's really clear that almost every subject that we've attempted it rhymes in some way with the present." - Ken Burns

The 12-hour series features a star-studded cast that voices nearly 200 individual historical figures. Actors include Meryl Streep, Ethan Hawke, Maya Hawke, Josh Hutcherson, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton, and Joe Keery to name a few. Tune into PBS on November 16 to learn how America's founding turned the world upside-down. After the event, residents posed next to the countdown–that Burns helped change from 3 to 2–that marked that the 250th Anniversary of The Battle of Lexington was only two days away.

The festivities continue bright and early tomorrow, April 19, with a reenactment of the legendary Battle of Lexington at 5:15 am. See below for the full schedule of events and visit https://lex250.org/ for more information.