Hi, everybody. Welcome to tonight's Firelight Chat. We are going to be talking about July 4th and the founding of this country.

I hope that you had a wonderful July 4th weekend. You've probably heard me say before how important I think it is

that when it comes to our national holidays, all of our holidays really, that they be mindful rather than mindless.

And none more so than when it comes to July 4th. President John Adams said that he hoped that every July 4th we would be revisiting

the first principles of the United States. You know, we're living at a time when there are forces, as we know, actively trying to suppress America's history,

not teach our children what really happened. And this is particularly dangerous. We were already, as far as I'm concerned, in somewhat of a crisis.

I remember when I ran for President last time having read that there were 11 states in the Union that did not require even half a year of American civics history

government and so forth. We have to learn these things. And the principles of our founding need to be etched, not just on parchment, not just on glass or on marble walls somewhere.

They need to be etched on our hearts. Nothing makes us more invulnerable to anti-democratic forces than to have lost our own emotional connection to democracy, what it means.

And one of the ways we learn about what it means is by learning how it all started.

You know, for July 4th this year, I was in Port Smith, New Hampshire, and the Black Heritage Trail Foundation does this reading of a speech by Frederick Douglass that he gave in 1852 about what July 4th means he said to the Negro slave.

Boy, it was so powerful. And I always find American history so rich and so enriching. They say information is power. And I'll tell you, if you want power as a citizen, read our history.

So we're going to have a good time tonight. And we are joined by a friend and colleague, one of my favorite American historians, Harvey Kay.

Kay is Professor Emeritus of Democracy and Justice at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He's a member of the Retiree Council of the Wisconsin AFT and an award-winning author.

His recent books are Thomas Payne and the Promise of America and the Fight for the Four Freedoms, what made FDR and the greatest generation truly great.

Also a book called FDR on Democracy. Harvey, my friend, welcome.

Great to see you. And I have to tell you is that the Frederick Douglass speech almost sermon that he gave, he gave on July 5th the day after July 4th. So it's appropriate for you to have started off tonight with a reference to Frederick Douglass.

And also, by the way, is the speech itself that he delivered is truly remarkable. And I'm going to bring it up as we go along, I think.

Yeah, it's so extraordinary. And last year, I was reading about Lincoln and learn more about the relationship between Lincoln and Frederick Douglass than I had ever known before.

And in that speech that we're referring to by Frederick Douglass, he speaks at the beginning of the speech about his great admiration for the founders, his great admiration

for the founding principles of this country. Then he goes into slavery is an object evil. It is an object transgression against those principles and so forth.

But it's so significant that he starts by saying, hey, the principles are great. I have great admiration for the principles. It's just like when Martin Luther King said, we heard it just cash and check.

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