Ken Burns: Telling Constitutional Stories

We the People

National Constitution Center

News, News Commentary, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2018

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today we are joined by Ken Burns, renowned American filmmaker and documentarian, to discuss the history of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the legacy of the 14th Amendment. Ken Burns is prolific: His widely known documentary series include The Civil War (1990), Baseball (1994), Jazz (2001), The War (2007), The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009), Prohibition (2011), The Roosevelts (2014), and The Vietnam War (2017). He’s won 15 Emmy Awards, been nominated for two Academy Awards, and has been featured on PBS numerous times. His 11-hour magnum opus, The Civil War, has won over 40 major awards. This year being the 150th Anniversary of the 14th Amendment, there is no better figure to speak to on its enduring legacy than Ken. Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you. Contact the We the People team at podcast@constitutioncenter.org The National Constitution Center is offering CLE credits for select America’s Town Hall programs! Get more information at constitutioncenter.org/CLE.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center and
0:15.0	Center and welcome to We the People, a weekly show of constitutional debate.
0:16.0	The National Constitution Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit
0:20.0	chartered by Congress to increase awareness and understanding of the Constitution among
0:26.2	the American people.
0:27.8	And today, I'm so thrilled and honored to be joined by Ken Burns, the renowned American filmmaker whose
0:37.4	documentaries on the Civil War, the Vietnam War, the Roosevelt's, and Jackie Robinson and many other topics have
0:47.5	inspired America and done more to educate Americans about the Constitution than any other documentary filmmaker.
0:55.8	Ken Burns has a special passion for the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution,
1:01.4	and as the 14th Amendment to the Constitution turns 150 this year
1:08.0	and as the Constitution Center is preparing to create America's first gallery devoted to the constitutional legacy of the Civil War and
1:15.6	Reconstruction.
1:17.2	It's a great privilege to talk to Ken Burns about his thoughts, about how to tell the story of the Reconstruction Amendments and the
1:26.3	constitutional battle for equality. Ken, thank you so much for joining.
1:30.6	My pleasure. Ken Burns, you have said that all of your remarkable documentaries are in some ways teaching
1:39.8	about the Constitution and in your acclaimed Civil War documentary, you emphasize that the Civil
1:47.1	War was centrally about race.
1:51.0	What was the constitutional story you were trying to tell in the Civil War?
1:55.0	Well, I think I've tried to in all the films suggest that quite often our dry and sometimes
2:01.6	academic approach to the Constitution makes it
2:04.0	inaccessible to the average citizen and that the stories that we tell, the
2:08.9	his stories that we tell are a way to sort of remove the difficult and sometimes
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