Tallahassee marks its bicentennial this year:

It’s Tallahassee’s 200th birthday next year, and this town plans to celebrate and reflect.

Last December, the Leon County Commission decided to create a bicentennial steering committee, whose job it was to plan for the new year. Many of the members of that committee were local stakeholders, like Robert “Bob” Holladay, president of the Tallahassee Historical Society.

Its planning, in conjunction with Visit Tallahassee, has culminated in tallahasseeleoncounty200.com, the official website for the bicentennial. It features historical background and, most important of all, an evolving calendar packed with events and celebrations.

The historical society already has posted many events to the calendar, including seminars, field trips and guest speakers.

Planners want to highlight the city’s territorial period between 1821, when Florida was bought from Spain, and 1824, when it became a state.

“We anticipated that a lot of people were going to be afraid to talk about that part of our history,” Holladay said. “All of these controversies come down to one fundamental question. That’s the question of race. Is the question of race so overwhelming in this country’s history that we can’t deal with it?”

Another group with events in the new year is Theater with a Mission, which reveals new research by scholars and puts on performances of texts written hundreds of years ago and captivating reenactments.

They will look to host multicultural plays that look to “examine early territorial laws.”

“One of the words that you keep hearing us say is ‘diversity,’ in terms of speaking to all sectors of the community,” said Ben Gunter, the group’s artistic director. “We’re really interested in giving people many, many different ways of coming through this portal, coming into contact with Tallahassee and shaping the Tallahassee of the future.”