The phrase, ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, is complicated when viewed from the perspective of an enslaved person. So for our Black History Month episode, we are exploring the wide variety of Black perspectives about the Declaration of Independence.

Topics include the following:

-a history of Juneteenth, the alternative Independence Day for Black Americans

-the different life situations of Black Americans in 1776 and their different responses to the Declaration of Independence

-the story of James Forten, free Black, Patriot volunteer, and early abolitionist, and Jeffrey Brace, an enslaved soldier in the Continental Army, who was re-enslaved after the war

-factors that might impel a free or enslaved Black person to support the Patriot cause or the Loyalist cause

-different strategies of resistance to enslavement

-the experiences of Black Loyalists and Black Patriots

-an analysis of the famous deleted passage in the Declaration which criticized slavery

-the Atlantic slave trade

-the subtle distinctions people made between the TRADING of slaves and the POSSESSION of slaves

Book mentioned in this episode:

Benjamin Arthur Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (1961)

Prof. Dickinson's book can be found here:

Almost Dead: Slavery and Social Rebirth in the Black Urban Atlantic, 1680-1807

The cover image depicts a Black Soldier from the 1st Rhode Island Regiment at the Battle of Yorktown (1781).