A non-fungible token (NFT), a unique digital cryptocurrency asset, memorializing one of the nation’s foremost political activists and whistleblowers, Daniel Ellsberg, will be auctioned off beginning Thursday, Jan. 12, with proceeds to benefit the UMass Amherst Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy and the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
The auction will take place on PleasrHouse, a new live-streaming show from PleasrDAO, which is known for collecting, enhancing, and amplifying culturally significant artifacts. Christian G. Appy, a UMass history professor, is writing a biography of Daniel Ellsberg, and directs the Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy.
Appy says, “I’m thrilled that funds from this auction will help the Initiative launch a wide range of public and scholarly programs on the vital issues that define Ellsberg’s life and legacy—truth-telling, peace activism, nuclear disarmament, First Amendment rights, and social and environmental justice.”
Proceeds from the NFT will be split among the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which aims to protect, defend, and empower public-interest journalism in the 21st century, and the Ellsberg Initiative, which is housed within the university’s College of Humanities & Fine Arts and highlights public education as a tool that can inform and help build a more just, peaceful, and democratic society.
The NFT auction furthers the university’s connection to Ellsberg who, in 2019, donated his papers—including the famed “Pentagon Papers”—to the university’s Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center.
What followed was a series of research projects developed by undergraduate and graduate students who used the papers and spoke directly to Ellsberg; the launch of the Ellsberg Archive Project website; a free, two-day online international conference called “Truth, Dissent, and the Legacy of Daniel Ellsberg”; and the…
