The Feast on the First, placed on Central Campus, voiced various people from different walks of life. 

First Amendment Day allowed high school students from around central Iowa to come and experience how to exercise their First Amendment rights at Iowa State. It also featured a lunch called Feast on the First, a free lunch coinciding with people taking part of the Iowa State Daily’s Voices campaign by speaking while atop soap boxes. 

The high schoolers participated in a “democalypse,” a game in which the audience decides which of the five rights in the First Amendment they want to vote off in importance.

“I started to notice how one right effected the other when taken away” said Cheyann Neades, junior from Des Moines North High School. 

During the feast, representatives from the Voices campaign and a member from the LGBTQ community spoke fervently about the importance of their First Amendment rights as part of a minority community.

“We see people who are using freedom of speech to harass people,” said Ben Spick, senior in anthropology and religious studies. ”Freedom of speech that tells us who we are rather than tear people down.”

Reflecting on his time speaking at the Feast on the First, Spick emphasized the importance of minority voices. 

“I’m speaking my truths as a queer person,” Spick said. “Someone whose sexuality can’t be put in a box.” 

Brenda Witherspoon, lecturer in journalism and mass communication, has been a part of the First Amendment Day committee for the past three years. 

“Years after years, you hear a lot about the first amendment, and it finally takes hold,” Witherspoon said.