At age 22, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar embarked on a journey across the world to attend Columbia University. Three decades later, he would be the chief author of the Indian Constitution. Today, there are more statues of Ambedkar in India than any other political figure. His seminal speech, The Annihilation of Caste, is a groundbreaking text that has fueled the anti-caste movement for generations. His legacy is felt not only in the communities he has inspired, but in the political foundations of the Indian Constitution, his scholarship, and his role as a critical philosopher and intellectual of the 20th century.

In India, Ambedkar is known as the “Father of the Constitution,” but not for his efforts to build transnational linkages to American civil rights organizing. In the United States, Ambedkar is not taught in classrooms, and caste is taught in a flattening and rigid manner. This exhibit seeks to build a transnational history of Ambedkar's time in and relationship to America to support the teaching of the Indian Independence Movement in global history classrooms, the elevation of Ambedkar as a 20th century political thinker, and a critical understanding of caste.