A Bicentennial Blitz for Lafayette

The bicentennial of Lafayette’s national tour will kick off in mid-August 2024 with events organized by the American Friends of Lafayette (AFL), and following the route of his journey. With a wide variety of activities in 24 states lasting just over a year, Americans will once again have the opportunity to celebrate Lafayette. 

The bicentennial celebration will begin on August 16 in New York City. Commemorations will follow Lafayette’s footsteps through the then-existing states in the exact order that he traveled in 1824 and 1825.

Some highlights will include a ticker-tape parade in New York City, a welcoming reception at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, a commemoration at George Washington’s tomb at Mount Vernon, a celebratory visit to Yorktown, and visits to presidential sites such as Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and James Madison’s Montpelier - all places that Lafayette visited two centuries ago.

With the contributions of a nationwide volunteer corps, the AFL will host celebrations in some 290 towns and cities stretching from Albany to New Orleans. On March 4, 2025, the AFL will then feature a celebration in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the only city Lafayette visited that had been named after him.

AFL Executive Director and Bicentennial Chair Chuck Schwam notes that this bicentennial has relevance in modern America. “The goal of this 'recreated' Farewell Tour is to “Celebrate, Commemorate, and Educate!” adding that “celebrating Lafayette’s lifelong commitment to human rights, the Franco-American Alliance, and the importance of linking the past to the present is more timely than ever.”

The festivities will end with a boat sailing down the Potomac River — past Mount Vernon, just as Lafayette did 200 years earlier on his way back to France.

The American Friends of Lafayette is a non-political historical and patriotic society dedicated to the memory of Major General Gilbert Motier, Marquis de Lafayette and to the study of his life and times in America and France,

To learn more about the bicentennial or to get involved, visit: lafayette200.org.