The City Club of Cleveland is one of the nation’s great free speech forums. A product of the Progressive Era, we were founded in 1912 and are one of the nation’s oldest continuous independent free speech forums, renowned for our tradition of debate and discussion. For more than a hundred years, all of our speakers—from sitting presidents to community activists—have answered unfiltered, unrehearsed questions directly from the audience.

Our Mission is to create conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.
Our Vision is of strong, informed individuals and communities that prize freedom of speech and civil, civic dialogue.