We can contain multitudes and the future is yet unwritten.

Right, okay, so here's another dimension of this problem, and Obama's a good example.

So the dream of freedom for the black political class, Obama included, is not one of class power.

It's not that.

It's one in which you have successful black people Right.

A handful because the rest of them are not successful because they need discipline.

Right.

Because I think a lot of people try to separate it out.

Unpack for us what you mean by all that.

Right.

Well, in the last part, the title comes from a quote from David Walker's appeal, a text he wrote in 1839, where he says, look, he's talking to white Americans, says, look, pay attention to your declaration, because not only is it an example, kind of jumble of hypocrisies, but it also warns you that, you know, as black people, we are living under a government that's unjust and we will rebel, we will revolt.

And so as a referendum on the definition of the human, I spoke specifically about some of these petitions that were put forward by enslaved people or free black people during the American Revolution, where they use the language of the declaration to claim freedom, even claim reparations.

And one in particular was from a woman named Mumbet.

enslaved woman living in Massachusetts.

She was a captive of Colonel John Ashley, who was a slaveholder in Sheffield, Massachusetts.

What would you change if you could about the Declaration of Independence?

[laughs]

When I listen to Democracy Now!, I never miss it.

Um, yeah, it's interesting because on one hand, that speech is very important as a critique of the contradictions between a declaration that's claiming that all men are created equal, that's built on this Enlightenment ideology of kind of mass equality, uh, on the one hand.

But on the other hand, um, that's not the history of the United States.

And so [lips smack] and I don't make them listen to all of it.

Uh, but I think the part where Douglass goes on to talk about this being a sham, sh- you know, mere bombast, is significant.

I also have them, uh, or read to them David Walker's appeal where, you know, the title of my piece, uh, comes from David Walker's, uh, Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, published in 1829, where he basically says, "Look, your declaration, uh, is a, um, is hypocrisy," essentially.

And Professor, uh, Robin Kelley, if you could also talk about the fact that, uh, Douglass, uh, despite his, uh, uh, criticism of the Declaration, as you point out in your piece, remained a staunch defender of the US Constitution, calling it, quote, "A glorious liberty document opposed to slavery." If you could explain why that's your ca- uh, the s- uh, the case, and your sense of the differences, if any, between the Dou- Declaration and the Constitution on the question of slavery.

Slavery, we know, is incredibly violent, but is the violence after slavery is abolished different in your mind?

Postbellum violence is different in many ways.

One, now you're talking about Black people who are not property.

So the value of an African who is in bondage is one that required the owner to protect that investment.

Now you, you don't have that kind of protection.

The other thing which I think is really, really important, I don't want to lose this, is that state violence and mob violence are two sides of the same coin.

In other words, they're completely connected.

Do you get this question? And if so, what do you think is behind the question?

How does the Declaration of Independence get the Supreme Court there?

That's a great question.

I also want to encourage people to read the piece because there's some little surprises there I don't want to talk about, about the history of Justice Roger Taney, who has an interesting background in a relationship with the Declaration of Independence that goes back even before he's appointed Chief Justice.

But to go back, Chief Justice Taney is making a case that it's not just that Black people don't have any rights the white man's bound to respect.

He's really trying to make a case that there's no place in North America, no place, rather, in the United States that a slaveholder cannot bring his or her slaves.

That is to say that that decision on Dred Scott declared that every part of the United States has legalized slavery.

You have the right to bring your property wherever you want to bring it.

Right, exactly.