People tend to look at jefferson as a key founding father and looking at his sort of character and ethical failings. And people treat it like maybe the declaration of independence an are founding documents, and thus our country really rises above his wild beliefs. But i don't see it that way, right? I see it like, i you look at what ibram kendy is arguing as,. The declaration of independence wasn't really about ideas of universal freedom. It was about the people who signed the document getting, you know, becoming free of intervention and control of of the british crown. So they wanted to be free to do basically more of what they were doing, whih
“All men are created equal.” Those words, from the Declaration of Independence, are central to the story that Americans tell about ourselves and our history. But what did those words mean to the man who actually wrote them? By John Biewen, with guest Chenjerai Kumanyika.
Key sources for this episode:
Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People
Ibram Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning
The Racial Equity Institute