Podcast appearances and mentions of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass is remembered as one of the most powerful orators in American history, a leading voice for abolition, and an extraordinary champion of equal rights. He was also one of the 19th century's most important thinkers about freedom of speech. For Douglass, free speech was not simply a constitutional protection against government censorship. It was a fundamental human right, an indispensable weapon in the struggle against slavery, and an essential condition of equal citizenship and self-government. In this episode, scholar Jacob Mchangama examines Douglass's remarkably expansive understanding of free speech, drawing on a new research project that examines hundreds of his speeches, writings, and letters. Julie Silverbrook, chief content and learning officer at the National Constitution Center, moderates.    Resources  The Future of Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama  Frederick Douglass Free Speech Corpus, Jacob Mchangama  “Free Speech in a Changing World,” We the People (July 30, 2026)  Jacob Mchangama, Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media (2022)   Jacob Mchangama and Jeff Kosseff, The Future of Free Speech: Reversing the Global Decline of Democracy's Most Essential Freedom (2026)  Freedom of Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, and Petition, National Constitution Center  First Amendment: Speech and Press Clauses, National Constitution Center    Stay Connected and Learn More  Stay connected with We the People—follow, rate, and review the show wherever you listen.  Questions or comments? Email podcast@constitutioncenter.org.  Follow @ConstitutionCtr on social media and sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate.  Support our important work by making a donation today.  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate 

The Gary L. McDowell Institute presents Lucas Morel, Provost Faculty Fellow and John K. Boardman Jr. Professor of Politics and Department Head at Washington & Lee University, for the presentation "Frederick Douglass Sizes Up Abraham Lincoln: A Debate About the American Promise." Sept. 23, 2026. The Gary L. McDowell Institute is dedicated to its namesake's values and principles: free inquiry, thoughtful deliberation, and rigorous discussion of classical texts and issues in political economy. The Institute welcomes all members of the University of Richmond community and a wide range of political perspectives.

Last week, Hightower had the absolute pleasure of appearing on Tavis Smiley's live radio talk show—a lot of great laughs, and a lot of good ground covered! From the Texas races, to America at 250, to the idea that fundamental fairness is a sense all humans share, Tavis and Hightower went deep. Tavis and his team have given us permission to share it with you here, and we're so grateful—he's also just started his own Substack newsletter, and we encourage you to subscribe to one of the greats of American media at tavissmiley.substack.com. You can also listen live on KBLA 1580 daily, and subscribe to his podcast. —dzTranscriptEdited lightly for clarityPart 1Tavis Smiley: Tavis Smiley, glad you're with us in the second hour of our program here today.Yesterday, we stepped into what I call the Elders' Skybox to talk to Dr. Johnette Cole. She was absolutely amazing yesterday. If you missed that conversation with Johnnetta Cole yesterday, I encourage you to check out the podcast, now posted. She, of course, is the legendary, the iconic, first African American woman to be president of Spelman. But she's covered so much ground in her amazing career, and she joined us yesterday on the show. And Johnnetta Cole still got it. I mean, she was just blazing yesterday. So if you missed the conversation with Johnnetta Cole yesterday, I encourage you, you will not be disappointed. Check out the podcast, now up, of our dialogue with Dr. Cole yesterday.So we stepped into the Elders Skybox again today to talk to our friend and brother Jim Hightower, the legendary talk show host down in Texas. I quote him oftentimes. When you hear me say that the only thing you find in the middle of the road is a dead armadillo, that was Jim Hightower years ago, and I've never forgotten that line from all those years ago. You can't be middle of the road. We were just talking about that in our hour with Dr. Kaye Wise Whitehead about Hakeem Jeffries and some of these Democrats who, on a number of issues, still want to occupy the center, the middle of the road. That is not where one needs to be, especially right about now. Pick a side. Pick a side is my point. And that was Jim Hightower's advice many, many years ago. I never forgot when he said it, and I've held on to it all these years.I invited him on today to talk about this hot Texas Senate race, but more broadly to get his take, as a longtime progressive, on the march that we are witnessing in real time by these progressives after decades of being in the wilderness. With all that said, I'm honored to welcome Jim Hightower to this program. Jim, how are you, sir?Jim Hightower: I'm doing great, Tavis, and all the greater because I get to visit with you.Tavis Smiley: It's my honor to have you on this program. Thank you for those kind words. I meant what I said earlier about having listened to you. I'm at that age now. I just turned 62 a couple of days ago, and I've been at this, what, 35 years. My mom teases me about it, but people come on the show all the time: “Mr. Smiley, I grew up listening to you, I grew up watching you.” So I'm at that age now where I'm getting that. And this is funny, because I can say that to Jim Hightower now. I grew up listening to him and watching him, and so I'm thrilled to have him on this program.Let me just start with this, broadly speaking. I've asked this question of other guests. I've got two minutes now, we've got the rest of the hour when we come forward, but in these first two minutes, I'm asking you the same question I've asked of others. We are inside that eight-week sprint from Labor Day to Election Day. How are you feeling?Jim Hightower: I am feeling more upbeat than I have been in years about Texas politics. Our party has finally come alive down here, as you just indicated. We've had too many corporate centrists trying to dominate our party, thinking we can fool the people if we just tiptoe around our progressivism, rather than recognizing that people themselves are progressive. And if we talk to them in that kind of language, they might respond to us in a more favorable way than they have in the past, or respond at all.I would point out, first of all, Tavis, that Texas is not a right-wing state. It is not a Republican state. It is a non-voting state. And it has not been voting because the Democratic Party, my party, has been over in the ditch somewhere, trying not to be discovered, rather than recognizing that most people are quite progressive. I think of it in terms of my own father, who kept up with politics, but he was not political, particularly. He didn't know he had a political philosophy, but he did, and it was expressed to me many times in these words. He said, “Jim, everybody does better when everybody does better.” And that is what the Democratic Party is supposed to represent.And so that spirit is coming back within the Democratic Party. We have it with James Talarico running for Senate, Gina Hinojosa running for governor, but also let us not forget those down-ballot candidates, who can make such a difference in a campaign. I've been one of those myself, so I can attest to it. And we have a terrific lineup this year, including Clayton Tucker running for agriculture commissioner, a position that most people wouldn't pay a whole lot of attention to until you realize, wait a minute, if you eat, you are involved in agriculture. And we need to make that political as well as edible.Tavis Smiley: Love it. He's already on a roll. That is the Jim Hightower that I grew up listening to. He's wise, he drops these one-liners; as we say these days, he's dropping bars. I love his father's edict that everybody does better when everybody does better. It's so simple. But I want to give him some time to unpack this. I want to interrogate this notion that people themselves are progressive. People themselves are progressive. That line resonated with me; I suspect it did with you as well. I'll let him unpack that and a great deal more. I'm glad to have Jim Hightower for the hour on Tavis Smiley.Tavis Smiley, and longtime progressive activist, legendary talk show host, bestselling author Jim Hightower. So we've stepped into the Elders Skybox to tap into his wisdom in this hour as we are hurtling inexorably toward Election Day on Tuesday, November 3rd. Wanted to check in with him on some national issues, but certainly everybody's watching this Senate race in Texas. I talk to my friends down there all the time, and they are so excited about turning Texas blue. You heard Jim Hightower say a moment ago that Texas is not a Republican state, it's not a red state, it's a non-voting state. I'll let him unpack that as we move through this hour.But just some quick updates here. So you saw the Republican convention, that two-day farce they had down in Texas not long ago. Since that convention, a new poll has come out about the race in Texas. Interestingly, the survey happened on September 13th. That was Sunday, my birthday. And it's good news for James Talarico. The latest poll, this is the SoCal Strategies poll, shows Talarico leading Paxton 50 percent to 45 percent. It's a five-point margin. There had been a two-point lead by Paxton over Talarico. It's fascinating. So before the convention, Paxton was leading Talarico by two points in Texas. Post the convention, it flips. Talarico is now leading Paxton by five points. Not sure what Ken Paxton did or said at that convention that made these numbers flip. Obviously it's very, very tight, and these polls are snapshots in time. We still have weeks to go before Election Day. We'll let Jim Hightower unpack a bit more about the tightness of this race in Texas in this hour.But I want to start right now, Jim, where we left off moments ago, and that is with your suggestion that people are themselves a great deal more progressive than we acknowledge or give them credit for. We've got time. Unpack that for me.Jim Hightower: Well, just go back to your childhood. The very first political expression of a child, maybe at two years old, is “That's not fair.” That is a powerful political sentiment, and it's within all of us. And that's what we're seeing today. The unfairness of the billionaires with their data centers invading our communities. The unfairness of the destruction of voting rights, period. Not just the Voting Rights Act, but voting rights. The unfairness of economic plutocracy, really, and just a general unfairness that pervades our society, including the election itself.The idea that money can control. That happened to Texas, just as it did nationally, in the 1980s, when Tony Coelho, a member of Congress from California, decided that the Democrats didn't need to have all this grassroots stuff. We could just get money from rich people and throw it at television ads, and then we could compete with the Republicans. And the powers that be in the Democratic Party here in Texas agreed with that. So they began to shift away from what Ann Richards and myself and Jim Mattox and Garry Mauro and other good, solid Democrats were winning elections with: a focus on the grassroots people of our state. That got abandoned. Instead they turned to money.And when you turn to money, I can tell you, if you get a corporate check, written on the back of it is the corporate agenda. And they're going to cash that check, not you. That is what happened to Texas. The Democrats quit being Democrats because, well, we don't want to upset those money people, so we'll just tone down our message. And by toning down the message, we tone down our public support, our people's support. If we weren't standing for them, why would they stand for us? And so that's what happened. Our solid Democratic constituencies, which were farmers, working-class folks, teachers, environmentalists, didn't hear themselves in the Democratic message. So they quit voting. It's not that they turned Republican.We consistently had among the top one or two worst voting records in the country in the state of Texas. We have the lowest turnout in our country. Ken Paxton, you just mentioned, is now running for the U.S. Senate on the Republican ticket. Paxton got 68 percent of the Republican primary election that made him their nominee. Sixty-eight percent, boy, that sounds good. He must be very popular, until you realize that is 3.4 percent of the voters of Texas. That's who nominated him. That's his basic support: 3.4 percent. Can we not get 3.5 percent? Well, maybe if we began to organize and mobilize and strategize and do something a little stronger than we had been doing.And that's the good news in Texas. That's what has changed this election cycle over previous ones: our Democratic Party, with a new party chair, and a dynamic bunch of candidates running for statewide office and local office as well. We used to have 50 counties in our state that had no Democratic Party chair, much less a Democratic committee. We had state legislative district after district that had no Democratic contender in it. So we weren't even running. But this year we do. We have candidates, good candidates, in all of those districts. We have vibrant party building in every county in the state. You have to have the infrastructure. It's not just handsome candidates like myself, or smart and sassy people, that make the difference. It is grassroots, fundamentally. And if you abandon the grassroots, then there's no one to appeal to.Part 2Tavis Smiley: Let me ask you this. You said a few things, and I want to go back to them right quick. You're on a roll, and that's what he does every day, and I love it. I just have to keep up with him. Let me start with the money. No naiveté here, but my sense is, even though we've seen efforts, I think of McCain-Feingold, other efforts we've seen over the years, my sense is that at this point that horse has left the barn, and I can't imagine how we get money out of our politics. Citizens United, I can do this all day long, as you could, Jim Hightower. But that trade-off that Democrats made to get access to that money, there's no 180 on this. I mean, the Democratic Party is so broke now, as you know. The national Democratic Party is so broke, they've been borrowing money. So even though your indictment about the money in our politics is spot on, can you imagine any way to get money out of our politics at this point?Jim Hightower: Yes, I can, which is to go to the people with it. It is the most popular polling issue in America and has been for some time: getting corporate money out of politics. It's up at the 90 percent level, including something like 75 percent of Republicans who want to get this corporate money out of our system. So we have the base of support, but we have to have a politics that goes out there and collects that base. And that means running on it again. Our party nationally has quit running on that issue. So we've abandoned one of the very best issues we have, an issue of abject plutocracy over democracy, money over people.And that is what's beginning to change. That's why Talarico is up there, running as our Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. He has raised a ton of money, outraised Paxton himself, because he's getting small-dollar donations from people who are mad as hell about money in politics and how government serves money, not people. And again, Clayton Tucker, running for agriculture commissioner, has a theme that says to beat money power, you have to have people power. You have to organize people against organized money. That is a winning topic, and candidate after candidate around the country this time are beginning to grasp that and make hay with it.Tavis Smiley: Let me ask you this. The other thing you said, I want to come back to it. You're saying so much that's just jumping out at me. I want to come back to this notion of fundamental fairness. I find myself time and time again over the course of my career, Jim, on any number of issues, making the point that it's ultimately about fundamental fairness. Pick the issue, and my moral stance on so many of these issues is that it's ultimately about what I term fundamental fairness.And I loved your suggestion that one of the first things that comes out of our mouths as kids... I don't know where we get this, but when you said it, I smiled. I'm sure every parent listening to this program right now smiled. We've all heard kids say, “That's not fair. That's not fair.” I don't even know where that comes from, but we've all heard babies say that line. So I'm glad you used that.I'm wondering whether or not, in this moment, you believe that everyday people in this country care about fundamental fairness. And before you answer, here's my point. I think that we've become more nativist for a lot of reasons. People are turning inward, they're lashing outward. I'm not sure that we actually believe in meritocracy anymore. We see Donald Trump and the big grift. We see him not playing the game by any set of rules that speaks to any kind of fairness. We see the Supreme Court putting its thumb on the scale in favor of Donald Trump too often. We see a Congress that's doing nothing; they're letting Donald Trump run roughshod. In the legislative branch, the executive branch, or the judicial branch, I don't see any semblance of fairness. Tell me whether or not you believe that everyday people in this nation still believe in the notion. Never mind what we say as a two-year-old: as adults, do we believe in fundamental fairness?Jim Hightower: Yes, we do. And in every case that you mentioned there, Trump being a sleaze, Congress not taking any action, the Supreme Court being a corporate subsidiary, et cetera, their popularity has declined in direct proportion to their abandonment of those values of fairness. That still is within the people. We don't appeal to it. For the most part, we've not had a politics nationwide that appeals to that fairness issue. But again, I think it is so fundamental that it is the core of reestablishing a people's democracy in our country: just to focus on that fundamental issue of fairness.You know, again, back to my upbringing in the little town of Denison, Texas. My parents taught egalitarianism. They didn't know what that word was. Probably couldn't spell it, you know. But they understood it. What they said to me was, “Nobody is better than you, and you're not any better than anybody else.” Again, those are powerful moral sentiments that are deeply imbued, I think, in the human experience.And you see it as people rebel against the privatization of our schools, as people rebel against the monopolization of our food economy, our energy economy, any basic economy you want to talk about, controlled by a handful of billionaires. You see it in the public disgust with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and Jeff Bezos and these sorts of billionaires who seem to think that because they've got money, they've got brains, and they can just run things. But you can't run over the American people. You know, Lincoln said it: you can fool some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time. And I think those people are on the move.And again, if we have a politics that appeals to “we're going to be a unified country that believes in egalitarianism, that believes in fairness, that believes in economic justice, social justice,” then people will respond. They won't respond to those words, but they will respond to the reality that you put forward. Here's what we mean by that.Part 3Tavis Smiley: I hear it, I hear it. Jim Hightower, still on fire all these decades later. As I said earlier, in case you've just tuned in, people tell me all the time, “I grew up listening to you, I grew up watching you,” and I can say that about Jim Hightower, and now you see where I got it from. So much of the way I approach these issues I learned from Jim Hightower. He just speaks plain. I call it KISS MIP: keep it simple, make it plain. KISS MIP, keep it simple, make it plain. I love his parents' edict that everybody does better when everybody does better. There's a reason why he is the legendary Jim Hightower. You see why I want him on this program. I hope when I achieve his age, my mind is still as sharp as his and still on point the way his is. I am honored to have another half hour with Jim Hightower when we come forward on Tavis Smiley.I just saw the numbers. People are signing up by the hundreds to join us on Saturday, October 3rd. I'm inviting you once again, right now: mark your calendar. This is history in the making, the California Voices Town Hall and Ballot Forum, live from L.A., 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. All the candidates are showing up, and you should too. The event is free, but you must register. Go to KBLA1580.com right now and get your seat. California Voices, Saturday, October 3rd. Come be a part of history, brought to you by KBLA Talk 1580 and the Community Voter Education Project.And this is what I call wisdom speaking. Wisdom speaking. I am honored to be in conversation with the legendary, the iconic talk show host Jim Hightower, New York Times bestselling author, syndicated columnist, who has his own Substack called the Hightower Lowdown that I encourage you to sign up for: the Hightower Lowdown on Substack, by Jim Hightower. He's still dropping bars as often as he can. And again, I'm just thrilled to have him on this program for the hour. In case you missed the first half hour, you missed a good one. I love this homespun wisdom that he's sharing with us. There are thankfully a few more minutes to go in this dialogue, but check out the podcast of the entire conversation, posted later this evening, if you missed any of the brilliance of Jim Hightower in this first half hour.I want to play a clip for you. Jim and I were talking a little bit ago about the Republican convention, the midterm convention, the first time in 50-plus years that somebody did one of these in the midterms. And it was in Texas, of course, in Dallas. James Talarico is running for Senate in Texas as a Democrat against Ken Paxton. He didn't go to the convention, but post the convention, Talarico got a bump. Typically the guy featured at the convention gets a bump. Didn't work that way. Paxton did not get a bump. Post the convention, the poll indicates that Talarico is now leading Paxton in Texas by five points.If you were listening earlier, you heard Jim Hightower say that Texas is not a red state, not a Republican state, it's a non-voting state. And when you break down the numbers, as he did so brilliantly earlier, you'll see that Texas really is a non-voting state. I was thinking, when Jim was making that point, that if we did the data on every state, we may find out that most of these 50 states are not blue or red. They're all non-voting states. It ain't just Texas. I think Jim is on to something. We should stop this red and blue nonsense, even the purple nonsense, and just call them non-voting states. Jim Hightower once again is giving us something to think about.But Talarico gets a bump out of their convention. He goes up. He's up by five points right now. So all of my friends in Texas are excited about the chance for Texas to turn blue this time around. We will see if Talarico can pull that off.But back to that convention. I want you to listen very carefully. I'm just setting this up now. There was a heckler at this convention when Ted Cruz was speaking. And maybe heckler is the wrong word, because in the Black church we say you've got your amen corner. So I'm not sure he's a heckler as much as he is an amen corner for Ted Cruz, who did nothing to chin-check this guy, to stop this guy from what he was saying repeatedly while Ted Cruz was speaking. Cruz heard it loud and clear. You can hear it on the tape. And at no point did Ted Cruz stop to correct him. But listen to Ted Cruz, and just listen very carefully. You're going to hear it two or three times; see if you can't pick it out for yourself. Give it to me, Miles.Ted Cruz (audio clip): When Mamdani says he wants to seize the means of production, he means it. When Abdul El-Sayed says he has a quote “obligation to comply with Sharia law,” he means it. And when James Talarico says he wants to dismantle capitalism, he means it.Tavis Smiley: Have Miles play it one more time. I want you to hear it now. I'll tell you exactly what you should have heard. Every time he calls out the name of Mamdani, then Abdul El-Sayed, then James Talarico, there's a guy standing not too far from Ted Cruz who yells out, “He should be shot.” Mamdani: “He should be shot.” Abdul El-Sayed: “He should be shot.” James Talarico: “He should be shot.” Now listen again; see if you hear it.Ted Cruz (audio clip, replayed): When Mamdani says he wants to seize the means of production, he means it. When Abdul El-Sayed says he has a quote “obligation to comply with Sharia law,” he means it. And when James Talarico says he wants to dismantle capitalism, he means it.Tavis Smiley: Going back, Jim Hightower, to all of the pronouncements made after the death, the murder, of Charlie Kirk, and now on national television, at a Republican convention, you have someone yelling three times, no less, “He should be shot, he should be shot, he should be shot,” and ain't nobody said nothing about it, Jim Hightower.Jim Hightower: Yes, the silence is the evil. And that's all about Trump. You know, almost no Republican will stand up and say Trump is just full of it. He is espousing hatred, he is espousing misogyny, he is espousing racism, he's espousing xenophobia. He's espousing everything that America is against. Everything America stands for is being rejected by Ted Cruz and Ken Paxton and Donald Trump, et cetera. You know, I heard on TV recently, Tavis, some Republican saying about Ted Cruz, “Well, you know, sometimes Ted is his own worst enemy.” And I said, “Not while I'm alive, he's not.”We have to take on these people. We progressives can't just say, “Well, they're just talking.” No, they're not. They're spewing a doctrine of hatred and of violence, really, as you just portrayed in that amazing work of audio technology that you pulled off. It's very, very telling. And again, you know, I keep coming back to the positive side of it. That is not America. That's what gets portrayed most, but that is not who we are.Part 4Tavis Smiley: Not who we are. You see why I love Jim Hightower. I mean, he said Ted's his own worst enemy? Not as long as I'm living. I love, love, love Jim Hightower. All right, and that's why I invited him on this program for an hour. Let me circle back, Jim, to something else you said earlier, and actually I opined on it myself. I thought about what you said during the break. Based on your analysis and based on your framing, Texas ain't the only non-voting state. So why are we stuck on this red, blue, sometimes purple narrative when the truth is that all of these states are non-voting states?Jim Hightower: Yes. Well, the media, the political consultants, they're the ones who drew this red-blue color map on us. And it is not true. It has never been true. I've got a great story from my campaigning days of going into an area with people who are supposedly right-wing, and being able to talk to them. And we have candidates today doing that. Talarico is doing it, Clayton Tucker is doing it, Gina Hinojosa is doing it: going into areas where people have been told, “You're right-wing,” and they're saying, “Wait a minute, we like what this person is saying. Can't we talk about that?” And so we just have to keep saying it. But that requires, Tavis, that we go back to grassroots people politics again, to where we're talking to the people, not talking through consultants and PR people.You know, I'll tell you, today I'm sitting in my kitchen in Austin, Texas. But I live on the south side of Austin, and we're a little more irreverent over here. We're just a little more spunky. In fact, our slogan over here is “We're all here because we're not all there.”Tavis Smiley: I love Austin, and I'm glad to know that you are in that part of town. As a matter of fact, Austin's my favorite city in Texas. I didn't realize that until 25, 30 years ago, when I started going to the Texas Book Festival, one of the best book festivals in the country. I've been honored to be invited to speak there a number of times over the course of the 24 or 25 books I've written. I've been going to the Texas Book Festival for years. It's in Austin, the state capital. And I remember the first time I went there, I wanted to know where Barbara Jordan sat. That's what I wanted to know. In what seat did Barbara Jordan sit, before she went to Congress, of course? I wanted to find that out. But I've been to Austin a number of times over the years, and I like Austin. It's my favorite city in Texas. I didn't know that's where Jim was today, but I'm glad to know he's there.When we come forward... We've been talking about Texas, and of course a lot of national issues, and I don't want to color this any more than this. I want to give Jim all the canvas he needs to paint. I am curious, given all the years he's been out here espousing these progressive POVs, these progressive points of view, what he makes of the march that progressives are on right now across the country. Call them progressives, call them DSA. What does Jim Hightower think of this march by progressives right about now? And I'm also curious to get his take more broadly on how he sees America at 250. He's been on the front lines as a progressive fighter for a long time, but here we are, 250 years in. What does Jim Hightower make of this moment in this republic? You're listening to Tavis Smiley.Tavis Smiley, with Jim Hightower. Jim Hightower, you've been out here a long time on the front lines of this fight as an unapologetic progressive. What's your read of, as I would term it, this progressive march literally all across the country?Jim Hightower: Well, it is the most encouraging thing I've seen in a long, long time. And it is happening for real reasons, because the powers that be are running roughshod over the powers that ought to be. And people are catching on to that. So they're beginning to rebel, and not just liberals, and not just progressives or populists like me, but everyday working people are saying, as we started our conversation, Tavis, “That's not fair. This ain't right. This is not America.”And so we've been battling for years. We win fights. Again, you know, I was elected in the 1980s, two terms as Texas agriculture commissioner, elected with Ann Richards running for treasurer, Mattox running for attorney general, Garry Mauro running for land commissioner. We ran a unified campaign, because we could then go to people and say, “It's not just about electing poor old Hightower here. It's about electing a government. We can make change.” And that is what's missing in our politics: people believing that change can actually happen. Because, as you indicated so rightly early on, Congress doesn't do anything, the Supreme Court just follows the corporate agenda, and the White House, of course, is the mess that it's in.So we have to have results coming from our work. And that means a long-term view of politics. You know, I ran for office the first time and I lost. I came very close, but I lost. But I was able to turn it around, because even a losing campaign creates energy. It creates new people. It creates talent. And you can apply that to the next campaign, not just for one individual, but for many, many others. As Willie Nelson put it to me once, he said, “Hightower, the early bird might get the worm, but it's the second mouse that gets the cheese.”Tavis Smiley: You can't fade Jim Hightower. You cannot fade Jim Hightower, coming with wisdom of his own, wisdom from his parents, wisdom from Willie Nelson. Love me some Jim Hightower. We'll close this conversation when we come forward with his thoughts on America at 250. You're listening to Tavis Smiley.I've got three minutes left in this hour, which I have enjoyed immensely, stepping into the Elders Skybox. Again, yesterday Johnnetta Cole was here, former president of Spelman. Check out the podcast if you missed that brilliant conversation. And if you missed any of this dialogue with Jim Hightower, there's so much richness in this thing, man. You'll want to hear it again if you heard it once. And if you didn't hear it, check out the podcast, posted tonight. You will not be disappointed in this conversation with Jim Hightower. As they say in Washington, I want to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas. I've got three minutes left. It's all yours, Jim Hightower. Three minutes. Talk to me about America at 250 as you see it, my friend.Jim Hightower: I think America is healthy in a fundamental way. It's very active right now. You know, there are all kinds of great groups out there making fundamental changes, groups that are progressive and inclusive. And all the bad words we're not supposed to say, again: diversity and equity. I mean, what's wrong with diversity? What's wrong with equity? What are they talking about? And I think more and more people are asking that. And we need to have a constant politics that asks that question. Why should we be afraid of diversity? Unless you're a Native American, you are an immigrant. Stop pretending.And I'm talking to our people now, our progressive people. Stop thinking that it's dangerous to say this stuff. It's not dangerous. People want to hear it, and they will be better for hearing it. You'll get called an agitator. Our wonderful friend and mentor Jesse Jackson spoke brilliantly about being an agitator. You know, after all, it was agitators that built America: Thomas Paine, Shays' Rebellion, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, the populists, right on through. And Jesse put it like this. He said the agitator is the center post in the washing machine that gets the dirt out. We need a lot more of that. We need a lot more of that. And people are ready for it.And I would add just another Jesse Jackson moment, which, again, he did brilliantly. He said, “We might not all have come over on the same boat, but we're in the same boat now.” And that is a powerful political reality. So he was able to rally farmers, and I was with him at some of those events in his presidential campaign, and in his Rainbow Coalition and the other coalitions related to the Rainbow Coalition. They all built together. Jesse Jackson had an intentional program to create a little-d democratic, diverse populist movement based on equality for all. Those are old-time American themes. And we have fought for them, and we have won again and again. Let us not forget that we have won this battle before. It's in front of us, but we've got to do it again.Tavis Smiley: There you go, Jim. We say around here all the time, when we fight, we win. When we fight, we win, and you can't win it if you ain't in it. America needs more of Jim Hightower. I declare it. I knew I hadn't talked to Jim in a long time. I knew it'd be a great hour. I didn't know how great it would actually be, but he still got it. And I am pleased that he put me on his schedule for a full hour today. How blessed are we to have heard the insights of this longtime, unapologetic progressive, Jim Hightower, who's feeling himself these days, and I ain't mad at him, about this march that progressives are on. And I close with what his parents said to him many, many years ago: everybody does better when everybody does better. Jim Hightower, thank you, thank you, thank you, my friend.Jim Hightower: Thank you, Tavis.Tavis Smiley: Good to have you on. More of Tavis Smiley when we come forward.Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

John West joins Eric to discuss Cornerstone University's new core curriculum and why he believes Christian higher education needs to recover a serious understanding of the Bible, Western civilization, and the American founding.West explains why Cornerstone students will study primary sources including the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, Christian sermons, Frederick Douglass, Marx, and other influential thinkers. Eric and John also discuss the Plymouth Colony, property rights, natural law, Christianity's influence on American ideas of human dignity and liberty, and a recent survey showing widespread disagreement over where Americans' rights come from.⭐ ORDER NOW:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World

Two men born in 1818. One escaped slavery and defended God-given rights, private property, and the Constitution. The other built a theory that put power in the hands of the state. KCarl Smith joins the conversation to expose the clash between Frederick Douglass and Karl Marx — and why that battle is still shaping America today.

The Declaration of Independence announced more than a separation from Britain. It made a claim about government itself: that people hold rights government did not grant and cannot take away, and that legitimate power rests on the consent of the governed. Those ideas were unprecedented in 1776. Two hundred fifty years later, they are still unfinished business.Judge Douglas Ginsburg joins Katie Crawford-Lackey to consider what the Declaration has meant at home and abroad. He served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, including a term as chief judge, and hosted the PBS series A More or Less Perfect Union and We Hold These Truths.They trace the document's reach: more than a hundred national founding texts that reference it, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, drafted by Lafayette with Jefferson at his elbow, Ho Chi Minh quoting it word for word. And they trace its use here — Seneca Falls, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr. calling it a promissory note come due.Ginsburg also takes up the harder questions. How a document proclaiming equality emerged from a society built on slavery. Why "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" replaced "property." Whether the Declaration carries legal weight today, and what it would mean for courts to start from a presumption of liberty rather than a presumption that the government is right.The Declaration, he argues, is a yardstick, not a finish line. Every generation has to pick it up again.

Send us Fan MailAl Nofi joins us to discuss the adventures of the young Grant at Vicksburg!Get your copy here: https://www.savasbeatie.com/copy-of-fred-grant-at-vicksburg-a-boy-s-memoir-at-his-father-s-side-during-the-american-civil-war/Music is graciously provided by Craig Duncan.Our website: https://www.untoldcivilwar.com/Our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMMWxSupport the show:One time donation of any amount here: https://www.paypal.me/supportuntoldCWMonthly payment through Patreon and unlock unique perks!https://www.patreon.com/user?u=51151470&fan_landing=truThis show is made possible by the support of our sponsors:The Badge MakerProudly carrying affordable, USA made products for reenactors, living history interpreters, and lovers of history.Civil War TrailsThe world's largest 'Open Air Museum' offering over 1,350 sites across six states. Paddle to Frederick Douglass's birthplace, follow the Gettysburg Campaign turn-by-turn in your car, or hike to mountain tops where long forgotten earthworks and artillery positions await you.Military Images MagazineAmerica's only magazine dedicated solely to the study of portrait photographs of Civil War soldiers.The Excelsior BrigadeDealers in FINE CIVIL WAR MEMORABILIA.The goal of the "Brigade" is to offer high quality, original items while ensuring the best in service and customer satisfaction.HistoryFixCome enjoy history! Explore stories from the Middle Ages to the early 21st century. Enjoy historical video content always ad free and get a 7-day free trial as you explore our site.1863 DesignsAre you looking for Civil War themed graphic design, logo design, historical art and or hand drawn art? Look no further than 1863 Designs. Use the code, “UNTOLD” for 15% off your purchase! Iron Horse Military AntiquesIron Horse Military Antiques is an Illinois-based buyer and seller of nineteenth-century documents, letters, images, and militaria, specializing in the American Civil War.Support the showSupport the show

On today's show, Rachel Keith talks to Duke University assistant professor Dr. Justin Leroy about his new book, The Lowest Freedom — Racial Capitalism and Black Thought in the Nineteenth Century. We discuss American history in the context of prominent Black authors like Wilmington's own David Walker, along with Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells.

“You should fight against tyranny in any form it takes. You're not betraying the founding by standing up to tyranny — you're following in their footsteps.” — Dennis Rasmussen After Lincoln, he was the best known man in nineteenth century America. And the most photographed too, some 160 portraits of the ex-slave's unmistakable face still surviving. So there was nothing hidden about Frederick Douglass. And yet the more we know about this most remarkable American, the more enigmatic he becomes. At first, he was America's fiercest critic. In the early 1840s he accused the founders of being “little better than a band of pirates” and described the Constitution as a “wicked compact.” By 1851, however, he radically revised his view of that same Constitution, eulogizing it as “a glorious liberty document” that outlawed slavery outright. So why did Douglass change his mind so radically? Is it really possible that he was simultaneously America's fiercest critic and its greatest fan? That's the riddle at the heart of Dennis Rasmussen's new book Frederick Douglass's American Founding. Rasmussen reminds us that Douglass got his political education from William Lloyd Garrison, the unbending New Englander who burned a copy of the Constitution and ground its ashes under his intolerant heel. Then Douglass — having moved to Rochester, started his own newspaper, and fallen in with Gerrit Smith's political abolitionists — spent two years changing his mind about the Constitution. His logic was startlingly modern. Scalia before Antonin Scalia. Studying the historic document like a biblical scholar, Douglass argued that it never mentions slavery nor race. So the rights it confers, he argued, belong to all Americans. This exegesis made him more militant than Lincoln, because he argued that such a careful reading of the Constitution demanded immediate emancipation. Was Douglass bought or paid off by Gerrit Smith? Naturally the bitter Garrisonians said he was. But Dennis Rasmussen disputes this, arguing that the timing doesn't work. What Douglass earned instead, Rasmussen argues, was the right to call himself and his fellow abolitionists the founders' true heirs, more American than even Lincoln and the Republicans. So no mystery, then. The most familiar face in America confessing, in public, that he had been wrong for a decade. If only we had such political enigmas today. Five Takeaways •       Band of Pirates. Where Douglass started. Escaping slavery on Maryland's Eastern Shore at twenty, he entered the abolitionist movement under William Lloyd Garrison — editor of The Liberator, organizer of the largest antislavery society, and the man who called the Constitution “an agreement with death and a covenant with hell,” once burning a copy at a rally and grinding its ashes under his heel. Through the 1840s Douglass held the Garrisonian line: the founders were hypocrites who complained about a three-penny tax while kidnapping and enslaving a huge share of the population; the Constitution was not merely flawed but evil, with its three-fifths clause, fugitive slave clause and slave trade clause. And these were not respectable opinions. Rasmussen's reminder: even in the North, abolitionists were the tiniest and most despised minority in American politics — Garrison was tarred, feathered and dragged around Boston by a rope.•       The Two Years That Changed Him. The conversion ran from roughly 1849 to 1851, and it had a geography. Douglass left the East Coast for Rochester and started a newspaper against Garrison's wishes, landing in the heartland of the political abolitionists — the Liberty Party, the Radical Abolition Party — who believed slavery should be fought through the ballot rather than outside it. (The Garrisonians held the opposite: to vote at all was to uphold an evil system.) Having to defend his position in print, week after week, exposed him to arguments he hadn't met. The Garrisonians cried corruption: Gerrit Smith, one of the richest men in America, funded the paper and held the antislavery-Constitution view, so Douglass had been bought. Rasmussen finds the charge both unfair and untrue — the money came after the change of mind was mostly complete — and hears in it the same condescension the Garrisonians showed when they wanted Douglass to narrate his enslavement and leave the philosophical heavy lifting to whiter figures.•       Read the Words on the Page. How do you get from “wicked compact” to “glorious liberty document”? Douglass's answer was a method, and it is startlingly modern. Forget the intentions of the framers; read the text. The Constitution nowhere mentions slaves or slavery. It nowhere mentions white or black, or any euphemism for racial difference. Its preamble promises to establish justice and secure the blessings of liberty. Therefore its provisions apply equally to everyone born here — and the supposedly proslavery clauses can be construed, chapter and verse, to have nothing to do with slavery at all. Rasmussen is honest about the history: as an account of what the framers meant, no, it doesn't hold — he has written a whole book on the Philadelphia convention, where proslavery framers were plainly present. But as a reading of the words themselves, “it's far more interesting than you might think,” and Douglass's case is stronger than anyone expects.•       More Radical, Not Less. The hour's central correction, and the reason this isn't a story about a radical mellowing with age. Douglass's new position went beyond Lincoln's. The respectable antislavery view of the 1850s was “freedom national” — keep slavery out of the territories, leave it alone in the South. Douglass was among a tiny handful arguing that the Constitution already forbade slavery everywhere and demanded immediate emancipation. And after the conversion he became more militant, not less: more willing to countenance violence against slaveholders and slave catchers, and more emphatic in denouncing a country now openly betraying its own founding law. He also claimed the founders' mantle for the abolitionists rather than for Lincoln and the Republicans: the founders fought tyranny in their time; we fight it in ours; we are their true heirs. The parallel with the colonists was structural, not moral — he said repeatedly that the tyranny endured by the enslaved was a million times worse than a tax on tea.•       Wrapped in the American Flag. The legacy, and the reason the book lands in 2026. Douglass's reading made Black Americans constitutionally American by definition: the document recognizes only citizens and aliens, and “I was born here — so I am a citizen, wrapped in the American flag just as much as anyone else.” That argument runs straight through to King's promissory note in “I Have a Dream,” and underneath the twentieth century's long argument about whether to claim America or leave it. There are complications Rasmussen doesn't hide: the Garrisonians and John C. Calhoun agreed the Constitution was proslavery, a strange meeting of minds; his greatest speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”, was delivered mostly to white audiences, as most of his subscribers were white; he split with Elizabeth Cady Stanton over whether the Fifteenth Amendment should wait for women; and in later life — a stalwart Republican, entangled with the Freedman's Bank — he was, as Rasmussen puts it, all too human. And his le...

All this month, we're partnering with the Charles F. Kettering Foundation for a series called "Democracy Under Construction." You can find out more about their work at kettering.org and listen to their podcast "The Context" at kettering.org/thecontextFor the thirty-fourth installment of "50 Weeks That Shaped America" we go to western New York in the summer of 1848. Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Deva Woodly, Kettering Fellow and professor at Brown University, to discuss the Seneca Falls Convention on women's rights -- the characters who cooked it up over afternoon tea, the Declaration of Sentiments they wrote in the shadow of the Declaration of Independence, and the one resolution that nearly didn't pass, until Frederick Douglass stood up to speak. Plus: why western New York was the hotbed of basically every radical idea of the 19th century.Be sure to check out Deva's book “Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements”Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories. If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.comGet in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypodOur team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Prism of America's Education with Host Karen Schoen – The surveillance cameras are the tools that will enable them to implement the Great Reset/Agenda21/2030, 15-minute cities, and their sustainable green fraud schemes. Also, Kay Carl has spent years bringing Frederick Douglass' message of liberty to campuses and communities across the country, and he's here to talk...

For the second installment of our month-long collaboration with This Day, we go to western New York in the summer of 1848. This Day's hosts, Jody Avirgan, Nicole Hemmer, and Kellie Carter Jackson, are joined by Deva Woodly, Kettering research fellow and professor at Brown University, to discuss the Seneca Falls Convention on women's rights—the characters who cooked it up over afternoon tea, the Declaration of Sentiments they wrote in the shadow of the Declaration of Independence, and the one resolution that nearly didn't pass, until Frederick Douglass stood up to speak. Plus: why western New York was the hotbed of basically every radical idea of the 19th century. Deva Woodly is a research fellow at the Kettering Foundation: https://kettering.org/fellow/deva-woodly/ Be sure to check out her book, Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements: https://academic.oup.com/book/39098?login=false Learn more about this special series here: https://kettering.org/america-250-podcast-series-begins-in-september/ If you enjoy this episode, go over to This Day's feed for two more episodes on each of these historical topics. The Context's host, Alex Lovit, will be the guest in the third episode each week. Listen to all episodes here: https://www.jodyavirgan.com/political-history-show Attention, Washington, DC-area listeners! Join us on Monday, October 19, 2026, for a live taping of This Day. The Context host, Alex Lovit, will join This Day hosts live on stage. The featured guest is Kettering Senior Fellow Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. They will be in conversation about the moment of democratic realignment we are living through right now. Are we witnessing a fundamental shift in who holds power, who gets left out, and how race and class are reshaping the coalitions that define American politics? And what can history teach us about moments like this one? The event is open to the public, and tickets are available through the Howard Theatre: https://www.unionstagepresents.com/shows/this-day-live-the-next-realignment-presented-by-the-charles-f-kettering-foundation-19-oct Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dennis Rasmussen talks about his book, "Frederick Douglass's American Founding: How the Nation's Fiercest Critic Embraced the Constitution."

The Declaration of Independence is the United States' most radical idea, and its most enduring paradox.  Byron Williams, renowned public intellectual, theologian, columnist, explores this paradox in his new book, Liberty and Equality in America:  Examining the Radical and Paradoxical Legacy of the Declaration of Independence.  Williams asks: What does it mean for a nation officially committed to liberty and equality, while unofficially hamstrung by paradox to achieve its central tenets? Refusing simplistic celebration or cynical dismissal, Williams explores America's founding through the enduring tension between its highest ideals and its deepest contradictions.Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

September 3, 1838. Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery in Baltimore disguised as a sailor. Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more. History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.

What happens an artist realizes that they can never be the only one with questions?From that reckoning, artist Eric Gottesman spent the next twenty-five years rethinking what an artist with a camera, or a big idea is actually for. In this conversation with Bill Cleveland, Gottesman traces his path from documentary photographer to collaborative image-maker in Addis Ababa's AIDS-affected communities, and eventually to co-founding For Freedoms, the artist-led initiative that has turned billboards, town halls, and even a Super PAC into tools for civic discourse.This is a conversation about authorship, collectivity, and the culture of inquiry at the heart of both artmaking and a thriving democracy.In this episode we explore:How asking the right question often matters more than delivering the right answer.Why Eric Gottesman says he has never made art alone. And why he thinks that's true for everyone.A “composite nation:” Drawing on Frederick Douglass, Gottesman is now developing projects that imagine an American identity built from multiplicity and complexity rather than a single official story.Notable MentionsPeopleEric Gottesman — Artist, educator, writer, and organizer whose collaborative work addresses nationalism, migration, structural violence, history, and civic life. He is a co-founder of For Freedoms.Wendy Ewald — Photographer and one of Gottesman's mentors. Her decades of co-authored photography projects challenge conventional divisions between photographer, subject, observer, and author.Hank Willis Thomas — Conceptual artist and For Freedoms co-founder whose work examines identity, history, media, popular culture, and representation.Claudia L. Peña — Executive director of For Freedoms, UCLA law lecturer, and practitioner of transformative and restorative justice. She appears with Gottesman and Thomas in the episode's Skoll World Forum excerpt.Baalu Girma — Influential Ethiopian journalist and novelist who disappeared after publishing Oromay, his critique of the Derg regime and its military campaign in Eritrea.Emily Shur — Photographer who worked with Hank Willis Thomas, Eric Gottesman, and Wyatt Gallery to create contemporary photographic versions of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms.Wyatt Gallery — Photographer, For Freedoms co-founder, and producer of the contemporary Four Freedoms project.Marc Bamuthi Joseph — Spoken-word artist, writer, librettist, and cultural strategist who developed the six questions at the heart of America, the Beautiful.aja monet — Poet, recording artist, storyteller, and organizer appearing in the October 3, 2026, America(!) the Beautiful(?) performance, which is part of For Freedom's America, the Beautiful project.Derek Goldman — Director, playwright, educator, and co-founder of Georgetown University's Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics. Gottesman and Cleveland cite his emphasis on care in cultural work.Ariel Fristoe — Founder and artistic director of Out of Hand Theater, whose work brings theater, social justice, and civic engagement together.Organizations, Institutions, and PlacesFor Freedoms — Artist-led civic organization founded in 2016. It uses public art, billboards, exhibitions, town halls, and artist commissions to encourage listening, inquiry, belonging, and civic participation.Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University — The center at Duke University where Gottesman began his work in Ethiopia in partnership with Save the Children.Save the Children — International humanitarian organization that sent Gottesman to photograph the effects of drought in Ethiopia shortly after his graduation from Duke.The Charles F. Kettering Foundation — The Charles F. Kettering Foundation, headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, operating foundation with a mission to advance inclusive democracies worldwide by fostering citizen engagement, promoting government accountability, and countering authoritarianism.Democracy and the Arts — The Kettering Foundation's focus area for integrating the power of the arts into democratic life locally, nationally, and globally.Corcoran School of the Arts & Design — George Washington University school where Gottesman serves as the W.W. Corcoran Visiting Professor in Community Engagement and where For Freedoms has been in residence.Future Currents — Organization that helps movement leaders prepare for uncertain conditions and collaboratively imagine more inclusive, just, and democratic futures.U.S. Agency for International Development — Federal agency to which evidence of the Ethiopian drought was submitted to help prompt an international aid response. The episode conversation takes note of the agency's dismantling and changed status.Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — The city in which Gottesman began collaborating with people living with HIV and with children whose parents had died of AIDS.Somali Region, Ethiopia — The drought-affected eastern region where Gottesman first confronted the power imbalances and ethical contradictions of humanitarian photography.Sheshatshiu, Labrador, Canada — Innu community where Gottesman later collaborated with Wendy Ewald and young residents on a cross-generational photographic and community-curated project.Projects, Artworks, and EventsFor Freedoms at the 2024 Skoll World Forum — The episode includes an excerpt from this presentation by Eric Gottesman, Hank Willis Thomas, and Claudia Peña about art, interdependence, democracy, and social change. The forum took place in Oxford (not London as stated in the podcast).Contemporary Four Freedoms — For Freedoms' expansive reimagining of Rockwell's four paintings. More than 100 participants created 82 images representing a broader range of American identities; its Freedom of Worship appeared on the cover of TIME.Question Bridge: Black Males — Collaborative project...

For a century after Independence, Americans believed that their Revolution was still in progress. Nowhere was this clearer than on the Fourth of July, when Americans gathered for speeches that, as one orator put it in 1834, aimed to “examine the present, and to look forward to the future.”  Nathan Perl-Rosenthal joins us to talk about this exploration, which he covers in his new book The Long Revolution: Creating a United States after 1776,, which mines thousands of Independence Day orations.  In the words of local notables and national celebrities, men and women, white and Black, Perl-Rosenthal identifies contrasting visions, intense anxieties, and radical power the Revolution evoked deep into the nineteenth century. He has also created a map, July Fourth Orations, which shows where these thousands of events took place. This is a history of the American founding for today's fragmented and anxious political moment, helping us find a usable past to guide us toward our own uncertain future.Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

The 250th Birthday of the United States: Frederick Douglass” focusing on his book titled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave”; his speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” and his reaction to the start of the Civil War by the rebels firing on Fort Sumter.Find more at https://timharner.com

Max BootBook: Reagan: His Life and Legend Part One (Hour One) explores Ronald Reagan's early life, from a nomadic childhood shaped by an alcoholic father and an optimistic mother, to his success as a lifeguard, sports broadcaster, and Hollywood B-movie actor. It details his marriage to Jane Wyman and his leadership of the Screen Actors Guild during the anti-communist red hunts. Part Two (Hour Two) traces Reagan's presidency, beginning with his campaigns and the 1981 assassination attempt. It analyzes his supply-side domestic economics, foreign relations ending the Cold War with Mikhail Gorbachev, and the damaging Iran-Contra scandal. Alan TaylorBook: American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850 to 1873 Part One (Hour One) examines the ideological and geopolitical conflicts of mid-19th-century North America. It profiles figures like expansionist Jane McManis Cazneau, abolitionist Jane Swisshelm, and Black leaders Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany. It details the pre-war political struggles over slavery's expansion, including the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Part Two (Hour Two) covers post-1865 developments across the continent, focusing on Canadian confederation under John A. Macdonald, the French imperial intervention in Mexico against Benito Juárez, and the violent realities of Reconstruction under Andrew Johnson. It also outlines the brutal assimilation and subjugation of Native Americans in both the U.S. and Canada. Dennis SewellBook: Cromwell's Spy: From the American Colonies to the English Civil War Part One (Hour One) introduces George Downing, a brilliant Harvard graduate who rose to become Oliver Cromwell's scoutmaster general during the English Civil Wars. It explores his ideological training, his ruthless perspective on slavery, his intelligence victories in Scotland, and his facilitation of selling Scottish prisoners of war into colonial servitude. Part Two (Hour Two) details Downing's secret diplomacy with Cardinal Mazarin, followed by his opportunistic defection to Charles II upon Cromwell's death. To secure his position under the restored monarchy, Downing orchestrated the capture and rendition of his former regicide allies. David SheddBook: The Great Heist: China's Epic Campaign to Steal America's SecretsShedd analyzes China's multi-decade campaign of intellectual property and data theft against the United States, costing up to $600 billion annually. He explains how admitting China to the WTO in 2001 failed to foster democratization and details the massive scale of the Ministry of State Security. Using corporate examples like Apple and Google to illustrate this threat, he warns of America's vulnerabilities and advocates for defensive reforms, including a partial economic decoupling, modernized legal deterrence, and the establishment of a National Economic Security Council to better protect critical domestic industries and safeguard the nation's technological crown jewels.David K. RandallBook: The Monsters Bones: The Discovery of T-Rex and How It Shook Our WorldRandall recounts the historic discovery of the Tyrannosaurus Rex by pioneering paleontologist Barnum Brown. The narrative traces Brown's journey from a Kansas farm to his recruitment by Henry Fairfield Osborn for the American Museum of Natural History. Driven by Gilded Age competition funded by wealthy industrialists, Brown used geological expertise and dynamite in 1902 to unearth the first T-Rex fossils in Hell Creek, Montana. Despite facing devastating personal tragedy, Brown's efforts culminated in the legendary 1915 public mounting of the apex predator in New York, forever transforming the public's understanding of prehistoric life.

Episode 5602: One On One with Ed Martin; Fredrick Douglass vs. Karl Marx

Reconstruction promised freedom and political equality, but how quickly did that promise begin to unravel? Why did white Southern resistance become so violent, and why did Northern support for Reconstruction begin to fade? In this episode, we explore the rise of Jim Crow, the retreat of federal protection, and the political choices that transformed the South for generations.Our returning guest today is Bradley Rebeiro, Associate Professor of Law at BYU Law School. He is the author of ‘Until the Last Yoke is Broke: The Constitutional Vision of Frederick Douglass', which is out on September 29th of this year.Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During the summer break, the 15-Minute History team will be republishing some of your favorite episodes. This episode originally aired on November 14, 2022.---"I once knew a little boy whose mother and father died when he was six years old. He was a slave and had no one to care for him. He slept on a dirt floor in a hovel, and in cold weather would crawl into a meal bag head foremost and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them warm. Often he would roast an ear of corn and eat it to satisfy his hunger, and many times has he crawled under the barn or stable and secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire and eat.That boy did not wear pants like you do, but a tow linen shirt. Schools were unknown to him, and he learned to spell from an old Webster's spelling-book and to read and write from posters on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him. He would then preach and speak, and soon became well known. He became Presidential Elector, United States Marshal, United States Recorder, United States diplomat, and accumulated some wealth. He wore broadcloth and didn't have to divide crumbs with the dogs under the table. That boy was Frederick Douglas."Join us as we teach you about Fredrick Douglas, his early life, his escape to freedom, and his profound effect on ending slavery in the United States.     

President Trump's nationwide crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion is reaching far beyond federal offices. In this episode of Habari Live, Damon and Iesha examine how anti-DEI policies have affected federal employment, military libraries, museums, historical websites, and classrooms—including the Peoria Unified School District's decision to prohibit works by Frederick Douglass and Lorraine Hansberry.We break down the removal of 381 books from the Naval Academy library, including Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, while Mein Kampf remained available. We also examine the removal or alteration of federal material honoring Jackie Robinson, Harriet Tubman, the Tuskegee Airmen, Navajo Code Talkers, Black veterans, and women in military history.This conversation traces the suppression of Black literacy from slavery-era anti-literacy laws through Jim Crow textbooks, McCarthy-era censorship, and today's unprecedented wave of school book bans. We also discuss the impact on Black students, teachers and workers as Black unemployment remains substantially higher than white unemployment.Is this a return to merit and political neutrality—or a coordinated effort to erase Black history?Watch, share your thoughts, and subscribe to Habari Entertainment.News Our Way. Truth That Stays Undefeated.#HabariLive #BlackHistory #BookBans #DEI #Trump #FrederickDouglass #MayaAngelou #BlackNews #Education #PeoriaArizona,

Send us Fan MailOn the show is the cast behind "The Legend of Van Dorn. Get an inside look at the movie's production and the events that inspired it.Learn more here: https: https://legendofvandorn.com/email-me-about-van-dorn-film/Music is graciously provided by Craig Duncan.Our website: https://www.untoldcivilwar.com/Our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMMWxSupport the show:One time donation of any amount here: https://www.paypal.me/supportuntoldCWMonthly payment through Patreon and unlock unique perks!https://www.patreon.com/user?u=51151470&fan_landing=truThis show is made possible by the support of our sponsors:The Badge MakerProudly carrying affordable, USA made products for reenactors, living history interpreters, and lovers of history.Civil War TrailsThe world's largest 'Open Air Museum' offering over 1,350 sites across six states. Paddle to Frederick Douglass's birthplace, follow the Gettysburg Campaign turn-by-turn in your car, or hike to mountain tops where long forgotten earthworks and artillery positions await you.Military Images MagazineAmerica's only magazine dedicated solely to the study of portrait photographs of Civil War soldiers.The Excelsior BrigadeDealers in FINE CIVIL WAR MEMORABILIA.The goal of the "Brigade" is to offer high quality, original items while ensuring the best in service and customer satisfaction.HistoryFixCome enjoy history! Explore stories from the Middle Ages to the early 21st century. Enjoy historical video content always ad free and get a 7-day free trial as you explore our site.1863 DesignsAre you looking for Civil War themed graphic design, logo design, historical art and or hand drawn art? Look no further than 1863 Designs. Use the code, “UNTOLD” for 15% off your purchase! Iron Horse Military AntiquesIron Horse Military Antiques is an Illinois-based buyer and seller of nineteenth-century documents, letters, images, and militaria, specializing in the American Civil War.Support the show

We now have a free-form discussion in light of what was raised in part one about the Federalist Papers and Frederick Douglass' Fourth of July Speech: What should we do about the problems identified? Is the system broken beyond repair? Was it built with fatal flaws in it? Is it just working as normal, and the pendulum will inevitably swing away from madness as the system reasserts itself? We then open it up for a Q&A, which gets us talking about property vs. liberty, the power of corporations, the moral basis of our government, and our outlook on the future. Learn about Mark's fall philosophy of mind class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

With the end of the Civil War, four million formerly enslaved people in the South were now free. It was the beginning of a remarkable experiment: rebuilding the South on the foundations of freedom and equal citizenship. For a brief moment, the United States of America begins its first real attempt at establishing a multi-racial democracy.Our guest today is Bradley Rebeiro, Associate Professor of Law at BYU Law School. He is the author of ‘Until the Last Yoke is Broke: The Constitutional Vision of Frederick Douglass', which is out on September 29th of this year.Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fergus Bordewich returns to Commonwealth Club World Affairs with the spectacular story of the Great Centennial Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia: a world's fair designed to mark America's 100th birthday, but also a moment of reckoning for a nation sliding headlong into the Gilded Age. The extravaganza attracted 10 million Americans—nearly 20 percent of the population. Among them were P. T. Barnum, Frederick Douglass, and Mark Twain. Visitors from around the world also attended, including Dom Pedro, the emperor of Brazil. On display were inventions that signaled the changing landscape of American life, from the typewriter to the telephone to Heinz Tomato Ketchup. This celebration of America's first century came at a moment when its future seemed more precarious than ever, as big money threatened to overwhelm the government, underpaid workers waged the first national labor strike, feminists demanded rights for women, Native tribes went to war to repel the advancing settlement of the West, and Black Americans struggled to exercise their hard-won freedoms. And looming over the fair was the presidential race of 1876—a highly contested election that would determine the fate of Reconstruction and permanently reshape the Republican party. Fergus Bordewich animates these converging crises through the lives of four protagonists—Rutherford B. Hayes, Alexander Graham Bell, railroad magnate Tom Scott, and sculptor Edmonia Lewis—revealing an America striving to live up to the promise of its founders while bracing for the tidal wave of change on the horizon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Don't Imbibe the Kool-Aid with Kim Kennedy – As America marks 250 years, Gettysburg reveals how slavery, abolition, war, and constitutional principles test the nation's commitment to liberty. From Quakers to Frederick Douglass, courageous voices demand human dignity, while sacrifice and truth remind citizens that a republic survives only through moral resolve today...

We know Abraham Lincoln as the eloquent, compassionate leader of a nation torn by civil war. But he had another, less visible side, equally central to his character and leadership: Lincoln was a master of party politics. Schooled as a Whig in the rough-and-tumble of Illinois electioneering in the 1830s, Lincoln skillfully navigated treacherous partisan crosscurrents and helped build the Republican party into a viable force. His decades of experience as a party leader proved invaluable to him as president and commander in chief during the Civil War. Matthew Pinsker's groundbreaking Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln (W.W. Norton & Company, 2026) draws extensively on Lincoln's private correspondence to move beyond the marble icon and realize a flesh-and-blood character in Boss Lincoln. Behind closed doors he was shrewd and insistent, capable of deft manipulation, blunt intimidation, or thoughtful argument as needed. As a decision-maker he was attentive to detail but kept his own counsel and trusted his own acumen. His aides noted that in cabinet meetings Lincoln had the final say, and “there is no cavil.” Devoted to elections, he kept careful, handwritten tallies of party turnout, even gifting one to Mary Todd, another partisan, during their courtship. His hymn to democracy at Gettysburg in 1863 carried a partisan message to the political leaders gathered there: The fight for the union would take place at the polls as well as on the battlefield. Boss Lincoln often sacrificed candor for purpose. He used his White House meeting with Frederick Douglass in 1864, ostensibly about emancipation, to send a message to radicals about his need for their support. With emancipation and the war's outcome at stake, facing withering criticism from all sides, Lincoln won reelection by building a new political coalition through the Union party. Here was Boss Lincoln at his height, captured in absorbing detail in this indelible portrait of our greatest president. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

We know Abraham Lincoln as the eloquent, compassionate leader of a nation torn by civil war. But he had another, less visible side, equally central to his character and leadership: Lincoln was a master of party politics. Schooled as a Whig in the rough-and-tumble of Illinois electioneering in the 1830s, Lincoln skillfully navigated treacherous partisan crosscurrents and helped build the Republican party into a viable force. His decades of experience as a party leader proved invaluable to him as president and commander in chief during the Civil War. Matthew Pinsker's groundbreaking Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln (W.W. Norton & Company, 2026) draws extensively on Lincoln's private correspondence to move beyond the marble icon and realize a flesh-and-blood character in Boss Lincoln. Behind closed doors he was shrewd and insistent, capable of deft manipulation, blunt intimidation, or thoughtful argument as needed. As a decision-maker he was attentive to detail but kept his own counsel and trusted his own acumen. His aides noted that in cabinet meetings Lincoln had the final say, and “there is no cavil.” Devoted to elections, he kept careful, handwritten tallies of party turnout, even gifting one to Mary Todd, another partisan, during their courtship. His hymn to democracy at Gettysburg in 1863 carried a partisan message to the political leaders gathered there: The fight for the union would take place at the polls as well as on the battlefield. Boss Lincoln often sacrificed candor for purpose. He used his White House meeting with Frederick Douglass in 1864, ostensibly about emancipation, to send a message to radicals about his need for their support. With emancipation and the war's outcome at stake, facing withering criticism from all sides, Lincoln won reelection by building a new political coalition through the Union party. Here was Boss Lincoln at his height, captured in absorbing detail in this indelible portrait of our greatest president. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

We know Abraham Lincoln as the eloquent, compassionate leader of a nation torn by civil war. But he had another, less visible side, equally central to his character and leadership: Lincoln was a master of party politics. Schooled as a Whig in the rough-and-tumble of Illinois electioneering in the 1830s, Lincoln skillfully navigated treacherous partisan crosscurrents and helped build the Republican party into a viable force. His decades of experience as a party leader proved invaluable to him as president and commander in chief during the Civil War. Matthew Pinsker's groundbreaking Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln (W.W. Norton & Company, 2026) draws extensively on Lincoln's private correspondence to move beyond the marble icon and realize a flesh-and-blood character in Boss Lincoln. Behind closed doors he was shrewd and insistent, capable of deft manipulation, blunt intimidation, or thoughtful argument as needed. As a decision-maker he was attentive to detail but kept his own counsel and trusted his own acumen. His aides noted that in cabinet meetings Lincoln had the final say, and “there is no cavil.” Devoted to elections, he kept careful, handwritten tallies of party turnout, even gifting one to Mary Todd, another partisan, during their courtship. His hymn to democracy at Gettysburg in 1863 carried a partisan message to the political leaders gathered there: The fight for the union would take place at the polls as well as on the battlefield. Boss Lincoln often sacrificed candor for purpose. He used his White House meeting with Frederick Douglass in 1864, ostensibly about emancipation, to send a message to radicals about his need for their support. With emancipation and the war's outcome at stake, facing withering criticism from all sides, Lincoln won reelection by building a new political coalition through the Union party. Here was Boss Lincoln at his height, captured in absorbing detail in this indelible portrait of our greatest president. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

We know Abraham Lincoln as the eloquent, compassionate leader of a nation torn by civil war. But he had another, less visible side, equally central to his character and leadership: Lincoln was a master of party politics. Schooled as a Whig in the rough-and-tumble of Illinois electioneering in the 1830s, Lincoln skillfully navigated treacherous partisan crosscurrents and helped build the Republican party into a viable force. His decades of experience as a party leader proved invaluable to him as president and commander in chief during the Civil War. Matthew Pinsker's groundbreaking Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln (W.W. Norton & Company, 2026) draws extensively on Lincoln's private correspondence to move beyond the marble icon and realize a flesh-and-blood character in Boss Lincoln. Behind closed doors he was shrewd and insistent, capable of deft manipulation, blunt intimidation, or thoughtful argument as needed. As a decision-maker he was attentive to detail but kept his own counsel and trusted his own acumen. His aides noted that in cabinet meetings Lincoln had the final say, and “there is no cavil.” Devoted to elections, he kept careful, handwritten tallies of party turnout, even gifting one to Mary Todd, another partisan, during their courtship. His hymn to democracy at Gettysburg in 1863 carried a partisan message to the political leaders gathered there: The fight for the union would take place at the polls as well as on the battlefield. Boss Lincoln often sacrificed candor for purpose. He used his White House meeting with Frederick Douglass in 1864, ostensibly about emancipation, to send a message to radicals about his need for their support. With emancipation and the war's outcome at stake, facing withering criticism from all sides, Lincoln won reelection by building a new political coalition through the Union party. Here was Boss Lincoln at his height, captured in absorbing detail in this indelible portrait of our greatest president. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

To celebrate our nation's 250th birthday, we gathered in front of a lovely audience near Madison WI to discuss Federalist Papers 70, 78, 39, 54, 10 by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison from 1787-1788, Anti-Federalist Papers 78-80 (aka Brutus 11 and 15), and Frederick Douglass' Fourth of July Speech (1852). Is the American experiment working out as planned? We talk about the Founders' arguments regarding the unitary executive, the independence of the judiciary, factionalism, the 3/5 compromise for representing slaves, and finally, whether slavery corrupted the whole thing. Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion. Sponsors: Every self-made person started somewhere. Yours starts free at shopify.com/pel. Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. Learn about Mark's fall philosophy of mind class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

Send us Fan MailOn this episode former professional hot air balloon pilot and U.S. Army Green Beret, Kevin Knapp, will discuss the role of hot air balloons during the Civil War!Learn more here: https: https://www.facebook.com/civilwarballoonsMusic is graciously provided by Craig Duncan.Our website: https://www.untoldcivilwar.com/Our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMMWxSupport the show:One time donation of any amount here: https://www.paypal.me/supportuntoldCWMonthly payment through Patreon and unlock unique perks!https://www.patreon.com/user?u=51151470&fan_landing=truThis show is made possible by the support of our sponsors:The Badge MakerProudly carrying affordable, USA made products for reenactors, living history interpreters, and lovers of history.Civil War TrailsThe world's largest 'Open Air Museum' offering over 1,350 sites across six states. Paddle to Frederick Douglass's birthplace, follow the Gettysburg Campaign turn-by-turn in your car, or hike to mountain tops where long forgotten earthworks and artillery positions await you.Military Images MagazineAmerica's only magazine dedicated solely to the study of portrait photographs of Civil War soldiers.The Excelsior BrigadeDealers in FINE CIVIL WAR MEMORABILIA.The goal of the "Brigade" is to offer high quality, original items while ensuring the best in service and customer satisfaction.HistoryFixCome enjoy history! Explore stories from the Middle Ages to the early 21st century. Enjoy historical video content always ad free and get a 7-day free trial as you explore our site.1863 DesignsAre you looking for Civil War themed graphic design, logo design, historical art and or hand drawn art? Look no further than 1863 Designs. Use the code, “UNTOLD” for 15% off your purchase! Iron Horse Military AntiquesIron Horse Military Antiques is an Illinois-based buyer and seller of nineteenth-century documents, letters, images, and militaria, specializing in the American Civil War.History AnalyzedHistory Analyzed is a podcast which investigates both history's biggest moments and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the show

What does faithful Christian engagement in politics actually look like? In this episode, Loren talks with Justin Giboney, co-founder and president of the AND Campaign, to discuss his book Don't Let Nobody Turn You Around. Drawing lessons from the Black Church during the Civil Rights Movement, Giboney argues that Christians today have much to learn about integrity, public witness, moral imagination, and resisting the temptation to sacrifice biblical principles for political victories. The conversation also examines moral imagination, the role of institutions, gerrymandering, Christian public witness, and why the Civil Rights Movement remains one of the clearest examples of faithful political engagement in American history. Rather than offering partisan solutions, Giboney challenges Christians to recover a distinctly Christian approach to civic life that reflects the character of Jesus. Together they explore: What the Civil Rights Movement teaches Christians today Moral imagination and faithful public witness Why good causes don't justify unethical means The danger of making political opponents irredeemable Self-purification, spiritual formation, and Christian activism How Christians can engage politics without embracing tribalism Why justice and the gospel belong together   Justin E. Giboney (JD, Vanderbilt University) is the cofounder and president of the AND Campaign, a Christian civic organization focused on raising civic literacy, promoting civic pluralism, and equipping Christians to engage politics with the love and truth of Jesus Christ. An ordained minister, attorney, and political strategist, Giboney has been featured in publications such as the New York Times and Christianity Today and is the coauthor of the book Compassion (&) Conviction. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife and three sons.   Mentioned Resources:

Shiloh Hendrix guilty verdict — and why the Shiloh Hendrix case should terrify every American, especially black Americans. Jason Whitlock breaks down how Minnesota convicted Shiloh Hendrix of disorderly conduct over a racial slur, turning a free-speech argument between two adults into a crime. Was this justice — or the criminalization of words? Jason traces black Christian resilience from Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington to the 1862 "sticks and stones" creed, exposes the double standard around the N-word in rap culture, and asks why we now run to Caesar instead of God. ➢ Show Outline 00:00 - ➢ Follow Our GUESTS https://www.youtube.com/@TheShemekaMichelle  https://x.com/VirgilWalker ➢ Subscribe to Jason's other channel https://www.youtube.com/JasonWhitlock?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.youtube.com/@JasonWhitlockHarmony?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.youtube.com/@JasonWhitlockBYOG?sub_confirmation=1 https://www.youtube.com/@JasonWhitlockClips?sub_confirmation=1 ➢ Connect with Jason on Social Media:  https://x.com/JasonWhitlock  https://www.instagram.com/realjasonwhitlock/ https://www.facebook.com/jasonwhitlock ➢ Send Jason an Email FearlessBlazeShow@gmail.com ➢ Support The Blaze Visit https://TheBlaze.com. Explore the all-new ad-free experience and see for yourself how we're standing up against suppression and prioritizing independent journalism. Support Conservative Voices! Subscribe to BlazeTV at https://www.fearlessmission.com and get $20 off your yearly subscription. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Erick builds a full monologue on Nate Silver's Cooperative Election Study data showing the Democratic Socialists of America are not the poor but downwardly mobile rich kids with prestige degrees, invoking Peter Turchin's elite overproduction, Joseph Schumpeter's creative destruction, Graham Platner's fake oyster fisherman act, and Dan McLaughlin's Karl Marx versus Frederick Douglass contrast. His […]

On this solo episode, Travis turns the mic on himself and pulls lessons from some of his most impactful past guests to talk about the “dark chapter” — the messy, painful, often hidden seasons that actually create credibility and trust with your audience. Instead of highlighting a single guest, he weaves stories from Scott Harrison, Garrett J. White, Dane Cook, Frederick Douglass, and his own experiences to show how honesty about failures, trauma, and setbacks becomes the foundation for real influence in business and life. On this episode we talk about: Why your audience trusts the full, messy story more than the cleaned‑up highlight reel. Scott Harrison's journey from New York City club promoter to founding charity: water and raising over a billion dollars for clean water. Garrett J. White's vulnerability about marriage struggles, business collapse, and the origins of Wake Up Warrior. Dane Cook's reflections on how breakdowns, betrayal, and struggle shape your character more than success ever can. Practical ways to be honest about the “chinks in your armor” in sales, coaching, and content without turning it into a pity party. Research on expressive writing and narrative “redemption stories” that shows how telling your dark chapter can improve mental and physical health. How Travis personally used openness about his own failures to strip those moments of their power and deepen trust with his audience and inner circle. Top 3 Takeaways Your credibility lives in the dark chapter, not just the wins. The guests who built the deepest trust didn't sanitize their worst years — they owned their drugs, affairs, failures, and misaligned careers, and that honesty made their expertise land more powerfully. Being upfront about weaknesses builds more trust than pretending to be perfect. Whether you're selling a product, running a coaching business, or growing an audience, admitting the “chinks in your armor” and even proactively sharing bad news makes people more likely to believe you when you talk about your strengths. Narrating your struggles as a redemption story changes you and your future. Longitudinal studies and expressive‑writing research show that telling “bad‑to‑good,” agency‑driven stories about your life improves mental health trajectories and even immune function over time. Notable Quotes “The cleaned‑up story is significantly less powerful than the full accounting of what happened.” “The best that I could come up with for a tombstone would be, ‘Here lies a selfish man who got a million people drunk.'” – Scott Harrison, on his New York City nightlife career before founding charity: water. “Your character doesn't come from success. Success gives you nothing but accoutrements… The only place that you can become something is in the struggle moments and not in the success.” – Dane Cook. “It builds trust to tell people about a weakness in your armor… and it's even better if you can do it before they bring it up.” “Don't shy away from the struggle. Embrace the struggle, and a lot of times the struggle is where the success actually comes from.” Connect with Travis Chappell: Instagram: https://instagram.com/travischappell Website: https://travischappell.com A Word from Our Sponsors: - Visit DrinkAG1.com/TMM to get a free AG1 Travel Case with 7 free AG1Travel Packs in your Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order while supplies last.  - Go to Leesa.com for 25% OFF select mattresses (through July 26, 2026) PLUS get an extra $50 off with promo code TMM, exclusive for my listeners  - To learn more about Mode Mobile and its investor community, go to https://invest.modemobile.com/travismakesmoney -Travis Makes Money is made possible by High Level – the All-In-One Sales & Marketing Platform built for agencies, by an agency.Capture leads, nurture them, and close more deals—all from one powerful platform.Get an extended free trial at gohighlevel.com/travis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[REBROADCAST FROM February, 2021] We present the full conversation of an important installment of our Full Bio series. In 2021, historian David Blight shared stories and insights from his book, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for History.  Cover art courtesy of the publisher Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Mark Simone Interviews Author Ann Coulter on Her Latest Article on Birthright Citizenship. The Mark Simone Show July 1, 2026 • 11 min Episode Description They talk about the Supreme Court blocking Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship, which means if you're born in the U.S., you're a citizen, no matter your parents' status. They also get into how college campuses are pushing students to vote for progressive candidates.   Article mentioned- https://anncoulter.com/2026/07/02/dred-scotus/   Dred SCOTUS by Ann Coulter  July 2, 2026  Obviously, the Supreme Court's ruling on anchor babies in Trump v. Barbara is ridiculous. Chief Justice John Roberts, along with the Papist nut and the three witches, has apparently decided the “FREE MONEY” sign on our border was not good enough. We need to give the third world an even bigger incentive to flock here. Henceforth, we will lure illegal aliens with the guarantee of American citizenship for any kids they give birth to on U.S. soil. Welcome Hamas! (And you thought Democratic primaries were already wild!) Inasmuch as no one on TV seems to have bothered reading the opinions, here are a few highlights. 1) Justice Clarence Thomas's dissent is a tour de force. It will go down in history with Justice Benjamin Curtis's dissent in Dred Scott and Justice Frank Murphy's dissent in Korematsu. (It's also a good primer for snowbirds, who plan to avoid state taxes by moving to Florida, on the vital importance and clear legal meaning of “domicile.”) By contrast, Roberts's opinion for the court will go down with Justice Neil Gorsuch's opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, finding that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination against transgender employees—a ruling that was so embarrassing it was immediately ignored by everyone, including Gorsuch. That was clear this week, when, for the fourth time since Bostock, the court rejected similar claims by transgenders. 2) I'm sorry to mention that, inasmuch as Gorsuch was on the right side of the anchor baby case. Which reminds me, could the conservatives confidently informing us that anchor babies are required by the constitution (Bill O'Reilly, John Yoo, The Wall Street Journal, etc.) cite a single other case with Roberts on one side and Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the other, where Roberts was right? How about that terrific Obamacare ruling, deeply grounded in the text of the constitution? 3) Thomas's central point—appalling to liberals, but true nonetheless—is that the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to overrule Dred Scott, which held that black Americans were not citizens and therefore could not sue in federal court. Black slaves and freedmen alike, Thomas writes, “were unambiguously Americans. They were not foreigners. They were not aliens. They owed no foreign allegiance.” He quotes Frederick Douglass's plea for the citizenship of blacks: “We address you not as aliens nor as exiles … We are Americans.” In response to Thomas's manifestly obvious point that the Fourteenth Amendment was “enacted … with the one pervading purpose of securing equal citizenship for the freed slaves,” the great legal scholar Justice Ketanji Jackson ripostes: “The teacher who scolds a student for bullying a classmate hopes the student learns the broader lesson of treating everyone with kindness, not just that one kid.” 3) In his 91-page dissent, Thomas cites 42 legal cases, 19 historical letters or diplomatic dispatches, 6 formal Attorney General opinions and 11 statutes, including The Civil Rights Act of 1866, The Expatriation Act of 1868 and the Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795 and 1802. All directly on point. This, Roberts calls “scant evidence.” Whereas he cites a mighty three cases for his majority opinion: an inapposite one from Britain; the opinion of a New York assistant vice chancellor in an 1844 inheritance dispute in New York (BIG, if true); and one, Wong Kim Ark—the “strongest support for today's decision,” as Alito put it—using dubious dicta from a wandering opinion that primarily relied on the parents having been “legally domiciled” in the U.S. when the child was born. Not to be confused with, “living here illegally.” (Or “wintering in Palm Beach.”) It's as if Roberts didn't realize the case was about kids born to illegal aliens. 5) Roberts's weirdest citation is to an 1872 letter from Attorney General George Williams describing Francois Heinrich, a child born to Austrian parents while they were “temporarily residing” in New York City, as having been “originally clothed with American nationality.”

This was a live one, recorded on the eve of the 250th at Wake Forest Divinity School with the Double Deans in the room. Corey Walker's Theology Summit lecture — which spent six hours at the top of Substack the week we recorded — uses two moments in American history to name where we are: James Duane's October 1775 letter hoping this winter would bring revolution, and Gil Scott-Heron's 1973 album Winter in America, a lament for the arrested development of democracy after Nixon. Corey's argument is that 2026 is another winter. Bill Leonard, the founding dean who trained a generation to think about dissent, added the second layer: a perfect imperfect storm in which Christian nationalism has fused with authoritarian government and the church is the least helpful it has been in his lifetime. Three questions run through the conversation — Is God dead? (Sojourner Truth to Frederick Douglass in 1850), Is America possible? (Vincent Harding), and What does our religion say to those with their backs against the wall? (Howard Thurman) — and none of them get answered. What they get instead is Corey's proposal that the 250th is calling us to a counter memory — not the memory of those who prevailed, but of Miss Audrey, Mister Pugh, and Mister Linwood, the neighbors whose first names were their titles. Plus the Snake Handler Fund is officially open. Join our Online Summit - ⁠⁠⁠Unsettled Ground: Faith & the American Story at 250⁠⁠⁠ This summer, Diana Butler Bass and I are launching Faith at 250 — ⁠⁠⁠an online summit⁠⁠⁠ featuring scholars like Randall Balmer, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Elesha Coffman, and more, each offering their own take on religion and America at 250 years. We built it so faith communities have something honest and substantive to turn to when the nationalist narratives start flying. Sign up at ⁠⁠⁠www.TheologySummit.com⁠⁠⁠ to get access to every lecture, livestream, and discussion guide. The summit is donation-based, including 0. Dr. Corey D. B. Walker is Dean of Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities, and inaugural Director of the Program in African American Studies. A native of Norfolk, Virginia and an ordained American Baptist clergyperson, he previously served as Vice President and Dean at Virginia Union University's Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology, founding dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, Business and Education at Winston-Salem State University, and chair of Africana Studies at Brown University. He is a former student of Cornel West at Harvard, and sits on the board of Lincoln University (the country's first HBCU). Books: A Noble Fight: African American Freemasonry and the Struggle for Democracy in America (University of Illinois Press); Community Wealth Building and the Reconstruction of American Democracy (co-edited with Melody Barnes and Thad Williamson, Edward Elgar, 2020); and Beyond a Politics of Nostalgia: Religious Freedom and the Ends of Democracy (co-edited with Sabrina E. Dent). Forthcoming: Disciple of Nonviolence: Wyatt Tee Walker and the Struggle for the Soul of Democracy(University of Virginia Press). His Theology Summit lecture — Winter in America — is at theologysummit.com. Dr. Bill J. Leonard is the founding Dean of Wake Forest University School of Divinity and Professor of Divinity Emeritus. He writes a regular column for Baptist News Global. His most recent book is Appalachian Mountain Christianity: The Spirituality of Otherness (University of Georgia Press, 2024). Earlier books include A Sense of the Heart: Christian Religious Experience in the United States (Abingdon), Baptist Ways: A History (Judson), and The Challenge of Being Baptist (Baylor). He is, to the best of anyone's knowledge, the only person in Wake Forest history to have brought a serpent-handling preacher to campus with actual serpents (Reverend Carl Porter, 1997, five snakes minimum). The Snake Handler Fund at Wake Div is now, officially, open. This podcast is a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Homebrewed Christianity ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠production. 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On this Fourth of July, Americans are divided on the stars and stripes, the word "patriotism," and the idea of national pride.In light of our national crisis at the 250 marker, Seth shares an article by Dr. Kristin Du Mez and the words of the late civil rights icon Frederick Douglass.VIDEO: "What do the Slave is the Fourth of July"NBC article about the flag.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

In this special episode of Pass The Mic Jemar Tisby reads the entire historic address of Frederick Douglass entitled, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What did Thomas Jefferson really give America?Jefferson’s declaration that “all men are created equal” became the moral foundation of the American experiment, even as the nation struggled to live up to those words.In this episode, I reveal why Jefferson’s words endured through Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Martin Luther King Jr.—and how the Declaration created the pathway for America to become a better and freer country. If you’re tired of broken healthcare you need to choose the right pharmacy. Check them out at allfamilypharmacy.com/dinesh and use code DINESH10 to save 10% off your next order. Leave the old “buy and hold” crypto strategy behind at https://DineshCrypto.com ! Purchase crypto with military grade encryption and American customer service. Hundreds of crypto holders have saved MILLIONS thanks to BlockTrustIRA’s Animus AI. Visit https://DineshCrypto.com and receive up to $2,500 in FREE bonus crypto! America has nearly 39 trillion dollars in debt! Are you protected from this pending disaster? Go to http://DineshGold.com and get up to 10% in bonus gold or silver. I’m on substack! Check out what I have to say here: https://dineshdsouza.substack.com/ For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (706) 262-4774 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to https://askchapter.org/dinesh" Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does the fourth of July mean to a descendent of slavery? How do we process a 250th anniversary with a government that is taking our rights and erasing our history? Join hosts Angela Rye, Andrew Gillum, and Bakari Sellers for this Native Land MiniPod. If you’d like to submit a question, check out our tutorial video: http://www.instagram.com/reel/C5j_oBXLIg0/ and send to @nativelandpod. Welcome home y’all! —--------- We want to hear from you! Send us a video @nativelandpod and we may feature you on the podcast. Instagram X/Twitter Facebook NativeLandPod.com Watch full episodes of Native Land Pod here on YouTube. Native Land Pod is brought to you by Reasoned Choice Media. Thank you to the Native Land Pod team: Angela Rye as host, executive producer, and cofounder of Reasoned Choice Media; Andrew Gillum as host and producer, Bakari Sellers as host and producer, and Lauren Hansen as executive producer; LoLo Mychael is our research producer, and Nikolas Harter is our editor and producer. Special thanks to Chris Morrow and Lenard McKelvey, co-founders of Reasoned Choice Media. Theme music created by Daniel Laurent.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Tuesday's Mark Levin Show, Chief Justice Roberts improperly relied on English common law as a basis for birthright citizenship, despite the framers using it only as a guide and rejecting elements that conflicted with the U.S. system. The 14th Amendment and the preceding Civil Rights Act of 1866 were narrowly intended to grant full citizenship rights to freed Black slaves and their children amid post-Civil War resistance—not to address immigration or confer citizenship on children of illegal aliens. The opinion wrongly equates "jurisdiction" with mere physical presence, leading to illogical results like automatic citizenship for babies of illegal immigrants (who retain foreign allegiance) while creating unaddressed exceptions for diplomats, revealing a result-oriented, activist approach that rewrites history. Roberts and his Majority twisted the history of the 14th amendment and just constitutionalized birthright citizenship, knowing full well that our nation, like Europe, is facing a grave threat from within as a result, in part, of the intentional refusal of our government, when the Democrats are in power, to enforce immigration laws and, oppositely, facilitating the importation of aliens from all over the world without proper vetting. Also, the constitutional amendment process is rarely used. It requires two-thirds approval in both houses of Congress to propose language, followed by ratification by three-fourths (38) of the states—neither of which is feasible for issues like changing birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court has constitutionalized elements not originally in the Constitution, making reversal through amendments impractical. Instead, the effective path is filling Court vacancies with constitutionalists, as achieved in overturning Roe, without resorting to court packing. Later, Hans von Spakovsky calls in and explains that Roberts' opinion was appalling and a complete rewrite of American history, particularly regarding the 14th Amendment. He notes that Justices Alito and Thomas eviscerated it in separate dissents, highlighting that Roberts' historical account was inaccurate. He criticized Roberts' selective and distorting use of sources like Thomas Paine and Frederick Douglass, pointing out Thomas's observation that Douglass viewed Black Americans as citizens due to their equal allegiance to the U.S., unlike illegal aliens who owe allegiance to their native countries. Finally, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison favored limited central government, while Alexander Hamilton preferred a powerful, activist federal government with implied powers. Modern nationalist populists share this Hamilton big-government outlook with the left, which lacks clear constitutional principles and risks abuse, in contrast to true constitutional conservatism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 250 years ago, the founding fathers were days away from adopting the Declaration of Independence.Fast forward to July 4, 2026, two and a half centuries later, has America lived up to those lofty ideals?Is this anniversary a time for celebration, mourning, reckoning, or something else? We hear from 1A listeners on what Independence Day means to them.Note: One of our callers referenced the Frederick Douglass speech ‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.' You can read that here. Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Frederick Douglass was one of the few activists to see his goal achieved within his lifetime — the abolition of slavery. Kai Wright shares how Douglass discovered a new purpose after President Lincoln's assassination: campaigning for a bold new Constitution. From the Audible Original series Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise produced in collaboration with Higher Ground, Pushkin and The HISTORY Channel. Listen to the full Reconstruction series here     Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Roman and historian Imani Perry follow the Webster Blue Back Speller from the early days of the United States, to the heart of Black intellectual life. Through the lives of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, Roman and Imani uncover how a single object became a gateway to literacy, self-determination, and an enduring debate about what education, citizenship, and freedom should mean in America. A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered what many consider the best abolitionist speech of all time. He asked, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” What makes it such a masterpiece — and what can we take from it today? *** Thank you for listening. Help power On Point by making a donation here: wbur.org/giveonpoint