The Poster promotes the Estonian Congress – the representative body of Estonian citizens. It marks the first session of the Estonian Congress on 11 March 1990. Featured at the centre of the poster is the logo of the Republic of Estonia Citizens' Committees Movement.

The Citizens' Committees Movement was launched in February 1989. In March 1989, as a public initiative, people began to form Estonian Citizens' Committees to register Estonian citizens and their descendants. The movement aspired towards independence from Soviet rule and the restoration of Estonian statehood. The movement was based on the principle of legal continuity with the Republic of Estonia prior to the Soviet occupation, including the continuity of Estonian citizenship and property rights. The elections to the Estonian Congress were held from February 24 to 1 March 1990. At its first session on 11 March 1990 the Estonian Congress issued a manifesto announcing the aspiration of the people of Estonia to restore the Republic of Estonia on the basis of the Tartu Peace Treaty (2 February 1920) in which Estonia has gained independence from Russia. The Estonian Congress was discontinued on 26 September 1992 after the election of the Parliament of the Republic of Estonia.

The Estonian Congress considered all people who were Estonian citizens on 16 June 1940, the day before Estonia was occupied by the Red Army, to be legal citizens of the Republic of Estonia. The Citizens' Committees Movement was triggered by the fact that between 1945 and 1990 the number of pre-occupation Estonian citizens and their descendants dropped to two thirds of the population – the rest being people who had moved to Estonia from other parts of the Soviet Union. The Estonian Congress held the Soviet occupation of Estonia to be unlawful and regarded the mass immigrations organised by the Soviet Union as illegal. It did not, therefore, recognize the right of the Soviet immigrants to have a say in matters relating to Estonian independence. Many immigrants supported Estonia remaining within the composition of the Soviet Union.

In 1990–1991, Estonia had two bodies of power with a public mandate. The Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia was elected in free elections in 1990 in which all individuals living in the territory of Estonia had the right to vote. The Estonian Congress was voted for only by legal citizens of the Republic of Estonia and their direct descendants. Members of the Supreme Council and the Estonian Congress partially overlapped. In August 1991, during the attempted coup d'etat in Moscow and the restoration of Estonia's statehood, both bodies reached common ground and formed the Constituent Assembly that drafted the new constitution of the Republic of Estonia.

Estonia's subsequent policy on citizenship followed the basic ideology of the Estonian Congress – everyone who had been a citizen of Estonia on 16 June 1940 and their direct descendants were recognized as citizens of the new Republic of Estonia. All others had to obtain a residence permit or apply for citizenship by means of naturalisation. Today, non-citizens who are permanent residents of Estonia have the right to vote in local government elections, but not in parliamentary elections and they cannot be elected to governmental positions.