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- [00:00]
Don Wildman
Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe to bring the Past Alive. Acast Powers the World's Best Podcasts Here's a show that we recommend
- [00:42]
Kelly Carter Jackson
hello hello, it's Brooke Devard from Naked Beauty. Join me each week for unfiltered discussion about beauty trends, self care, journeys, wellness tips and the products we absolutely love and cannot get enough of. If you are a skincare obsessive and you spend 20 plus minutes on your skincare routine, this podcast is for you. Or if you're a newbie at the beginning of your skincare journey, you'll love this podcast as well. Because we go so much deeper than beauty. I talk to incredible and inspiring people from across industries about their relationship with beauty. You'll also hear from skincare experts. We break down lots of myths in the beauty industry. If this sounds like your thing, search for Naked Beauty on your podcast app and listen along. I hope you'll join us. Hi diva, it's Rachel and Jordan.
- [01:27]
Don Wildman
Yeah, hi.
- [01:27]
Podcast Announcer
Quick question.
- [01:28]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Why are you not spending your Venmo Balance? Yeah, we're concerned you can like buy stuff with it.
- [01:32]
Don Wildman
Ugh.
- [01:32]
Kelly Carter Jackson
You love buying stuff and earn cash back on eligible purchases. Mm.
- [01:36]
Don Wildman
You love purchasing eligible things.
- [01:38]
Kelly Carter Jackson
So the money your friend sent you
- [01:40]
Don Wildman
yesterday, that's today's ramen or rideshare or eye patches. The skincare kind, not the pyro kind. Spend with Venmo.
- [01:46]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Then you can earn cash back with Venmo Stash. Venmo Stash Bundle terms and exclusions apply. That's $100 cashback per month. See terms@venmo me terms id verification required to use a Venmo Balance Avoiding your
- [01:55]
Don Wildman
unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte, paint, finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app. Download Today, On July 4, 1776, an Irish born American named John Dunlap is given a document handwritten in quill pen on parchment. He gets to work, placing every letter and punctuation point in his printing frame. Piece by piece, working through the night, he starts printing his broadsides. As the first copies are drying, the words of the Declaration of Independence are set in print. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That all men are created equal becomes one of the central dilemmas of American history, part of an ongoing and defining struggle.
- [03:16]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Hello there.
- [03:17]
Don Wildman
Welcome to American History. I'm Don wildman. For the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we have invited a number of our favorite guests to discuss their personal favorite moments of our history. Moments that particularly capture the aspirational spirit of this uniquely American celebration. With me today is Kelly Carter Jackson, the Michael and Denise Kellen 68 professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She is the author of the award winning book Force and Freedom, Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence, and We Refuse A Forceful History of Black Resistance, among others. Kelly, great to see you again. Thanks for your time. All good?
- [04:08]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yes, all good. Thanks so much for having me again.
- [04:11]
Don Wildman
Of course. Happy, semi quincentennial. If you can even get that word out of your mouth. My God, I cannot.
- [04:17]
Kelly Carter Jackson
I've just been saying happy. 250.
- [04:19]
Don Wildman
Exactly. Thank you for taking this question. What subject, event, era, personality do you find most inspiring at this time? In the spirit of 250.
- [04:30]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Hmm. Okay, I'm so biased, but I always think about Frederick Douglass. I always think about Frederick Douglass. I really see Frederick Douglass as like the premier American. I mean, he lives such a storied life. And often when I think about the fourth of July, I think about his famous what to the slave is the 4th of July. And here in Boston on the 3rd of July every year, people take turns reading portions of his speech in public. So it's this big sort of forum, lots of people gather around. And it is one of the most beautiful sort of collective artistic acts where people get to sort of just spend time with his words and take different paragraphs reciting what he wrote. And I think about it every year. It's just really, really special.
- [05:19]
Don Wildman
Yeah, it happens every year. We relive in Martha's Vineyard. You know, he. He spoke there many times and vacationed there, but. And it happens there. Well, he sits squarely in the midst of an era of a whole era of, of American history that I think we should talk about in the spirit of 250, which is the abolitionist movement. But first, I want to know about your career. First, how did you come to study black resistance? Is that what we would call that particular field of study?
- [05:44]
Podcast Announcer
Yeah.
- [05:44]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yeah, that's a perfect encapsulation, I would say. In college, I majored in print journalism. I thought I was going to be a journalist, but I minored in African American studies, and I felt almost like I should have switched my major minor. I was so into all of the courses that I took in African American studies on black history, and I did my senior thesis on John Brown. So I really got into the abolitionist movement. You know, I'm taking classes in Frederick Douglass hall, and Howard is such a special place to study. I got paired with an advisor. She introduced me to the archives. She took me to the Moreland Spingard Research center, which is one of the largest repositories of African American history. And I just went all in. I mean, I could not get enough. Like, the first time I read letters that Frederick Douglass wrote to his daughter, and I was like, oh, my gosh, this is the actual letter. Like, this is the paper that he touched that he, like. I mean, I. I just could not get enough. And Howard is just so special when it comes to, like, activism and student activism and awareness. Yeah, yeah, that's my origin story.
- [06:53]
Don Wildman
Douglas is such a fully human person. I mean, it's so silly to say they all are, but Founding fathers, we sort of consigned to history more so. But Frederick Douglass is living and breathing. You can feel it in history. It's the tension between the ideals of this country and the reality of how this nation was really built that is a constant play of forces. That's fascinating in this time to consider. Unfortunately, we often speak of enslavement in the Americans on this series. It is, sadly, such a large chapter in the story of the United States. We'll get to abolition in a moment, but first we should address how fundamentally embedded slavery was in the life of this nation. North and south before the Civil War.
- [07:34]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Absolutely.
- [07:35]
Don Wildman
Yeah. It was a prime factor in U.S. economic growth. Let's just talk through that a bit.
- [07:41]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yeah, I mean, I don't think people realize Isabel Wilkerson says this in her book Cast, that we have been a country with slavery longer than we have been a country of free people. And that, to me, is always sort of staggering. You know, we're celebrating 200, 250 years of American history, and yet slavery is older than the country in a lot of Ways. And I think that tells you a lot about what you need to know about the United States. That slavery really is this old sin, a national sin. It is an economically huge business. It builds this country politically. It is so embedded when we think about why there was even a confederacy, why people were so bent on holding onto the institution of slavery because it protected their political power and their economic power and their social power. It has its sort of roots and tentacles everywhere in the country. So much so that you can readily see it to this day, the afterlives, the after effects of slavery. And so it's kind of hard to discuss America 250 and not talk about that duality. The fact that the founding fathers are being catered to by enslaved people while writing the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson is being served by enslaved people while he's writing we the People. You know, like it just is kind of mind boggling the cognitive dissonance that you need to have when talking about America and the institution of slavery.
- [09:14]
Don Wildman
Sure. By 1860, 4 million enslaved people, which represents, as you say, a massive amount of the nation's total wealth. And I think that's really important just, you know, even intellectually, nevermind emotionally, to understand this as a facet of enslavement that people often don't consider. I mean they get lost in the stories of how this lifestyle was led and this practice was led. But the fact of the statistics are really fascinating. Yeah, their labor produced of course, the lucrative crops like tobacco, rice and cotton. But on the other side of the Mason Dixon line, you've got northern merchants, textile mill owners, insurers also accumulating vast amounts of wealth, financing, transporting, processing the goods. When you consider all of that produced by enslaved labor, which of course we know the math plays through, you know, when you do these kinds of things economically, you understand that labor is the major cost of anything. And so here we are.
- [10:17]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yeah, I think people forget that or maybe aren't even aware of the fact that when the south seceded from the United States, New York City was going to join them. That New York City was like, wait a second, all of the banking, all the insurance companies, all of the investments are properly held within Manhattan. And so you had a lot of people in the who were deeply sympathetic to the south because their economic livelihoods were tethered to the institution of slavery.
- [10:46]
Don Wildman
Exactly. Eight of the first 12 US presidents, slaveholders. I mean that's how fundamentally not, never mind, you know, Jefferson and Washington and all these guys at the very beginning writing these, these ideas, these Contradictory ideas and hypocritical ideas in there. In the founding documents, it plays forth for decades right to the antebellum period and all of that. And then it was written into the Constitution. Of course, before that, you know, three fifths compromise, 1787 was the agreement between, during the U.S. constitutional Convention that states that three fifths of a state's enslaved population would be counted for determining both taxation and representation in the House of Representatives. So it's that fundamental. It's the. It's the rule of law, you know.
- [11:34]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yeah, yeah. That you are written into the Constitution inhumanely, that you are not a complete person. You are not 5/5 of a person. You are 3/5 of a person. And that counting mattered because slaveholders wanted their representation within Congress. Their political representation was based on, you know, the census, based on numbers, based on like, your population density. And so being able to count enslaved people, but not quite people is just mind boggling to me. That it's in. It's not someone's like, manifesto. It's not in someone's diary. This is in the Constitution of the United States. Slavery is a part of our fabric. And I think we need to be honest about that because there's an attempt to really erase or forget or sort of like cherry pick the way that we talk about the country. But you can't allow America to really be its best self until you look at it completely. Until you look at all the things that make it beautiful and ugly and terrible and hopeful all in the same space.
- [12:41]
Don Wildman
Thank you. I'm saying it all the time on this show and in my life. Can we get over all the, oh, my God, you know, the victimization of. Why do we talk about this stuff when we're just talking about it? It's not the reality today. There are definitely factors that we need to discuss as reality, but what we are talking about is a history that really is, in some regards a triumphant, at least you know, of. Of people deciding to change things, which is what we're going to talk about right now. And. But to understand. But first you have to understand the context, which is what we've just been doing. I want to cap that conversation by saying, you know, under the law, enslaved people were considered property. That's really important here. Then comes the landmark 1857 Dred Scott decision, which goes further, that says by the U.S. supreme Court's rule, black people, enslaved or free, were not citizens. Okay, that's as low as it gets. I mean, everything's low. But. But that's the one where no rights. Yeah. You aren't even. You aren't even, like, here. You know, you're not anything to do. So, yes, all of that is to say the abolitionist movement has to move that argument from the depths of despair. You know, our view of it.
- [13:55]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yeah.
- [13:56]
Don Wildman
To a whole other way of life in this country. An entire rebirth thanks to the likes of Frederick Douglass and all the rest. And that's what we're gonna discuss today. So when does the abolitionist movement really begin? Where are the roots? Are they here in the U.S. i
- [14:13]
Kelly Carter Jackson
would say, and this is, like, debated, but, I mean, like, scholars tend to pinpoint their starting points a little bit differently. But for me, the abolitionist movement starts the moment enslaved Africans are brought on ships and start resisting. Like, the moment they start resisting, no one wanted to be enslave. There are rebellions on slave ships. One out of every ten ships has a rebellion on it. And the moment Africans are brought to the New World, they are petitioning, advocating for their freedom. So you do have these waves in which you get abolitionist leaders who sometimes get a little bit more volume, sometimes get a little bit more attention in their movement. But in the early 1700s and the 1800s, you have people who are constantly speaking out about the institution of slavery, calling it saying it's bad. Equiano writes his slave narrative talking about the evils of slavery. Phyllis Wheatley, you know, was talking about this as well. But the. The abolitionist movement that sort of, we all popularly know, really has its Genesis in the 1830s. William Lloyd Garrison starts the American Anti slavery society in 1831. Or the New England Anti Slavery Society in 1831, the American Antislavery Society in 1832. So by the 1830s, you really have this formal official abolitionist organization. But before that, there is movement. There is traction, certainly in UK and England, they have their own abolitionist movement. So there are waves to it. But I think it's just important to say, regardless of where you start it, that people are always resisting the institution of slavery.
- [15:55]
Don Wildman
Well, this is a, you know, a classic trap of white saviorism. You know, like, whoa, whoa, whoa. There was abolitionists before white people started getting on the right side of this
- [16:06]
Kelly Carter Jackson
for William Lloyd Garrison. Yeah, I mean, I love William Lloyd Garrison, but he's not the only one.
- [16:10]
Don Wildman
Yeah, exactly. Even before, I mean, I would suggest 1688, there are the German Quakers in Philadelphia.
- [16:17]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yeah.
- [16:18]
Don Wildman
German Quakers in Pennsylvania lived in an area called Germantown. To this day. This was a village unto itself. It joins Philadelphia later. They issue in 1688. Okay. This is way before the country here. 88 years before this nation is founded. The English just took over New York from the Dutch. A decade or two before they issue the Germantown Quaker petition against slavery, marking the first organized protest against slavery in the colonies. Okay, that's 175 years before the Civil War.
- [16:50]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yeah. This is what I mean by I'm saying the country has had slavery longer than free people. I mean, it is. This is a old movement that people, I think that sometimes we like to give the past a past where we say, oh, well, they didn't know any better or everyone was doing it. No, people knew that it was wrong and they were calling it evil and they were calling it a sin and they were calling it deplorable. From the moment the system gets started, the church is calling it out quite a bit. Quakers, I mean, are known for really being sort of like the original OG abolitionists when you think about what they were doing and how early they were doing it.
- [17:37]
Don Wildman
But let's not be too quick about that because there are a lot of Quakers who own slaves. They were enslavers as well. True.
- [17:43]
Kelly Carter Jackson
And this is why the abolitionist movement is so messy, Right? It's so messy because it's not this very, no pun intended, but black and white movement where you have good people and bad people. You can't reduce any movement to sort of like heroes and villains. But I think we like to think of it very simplistically because it helps us to get our minds around it. But I mean, there were also black people who were slaveholders. Make sense of that. So like, you know, it's complicated.
- [18:12]
Don Wildman
Right. I mean, the Quakerism thing's interesting. We've done some shows on that, on the series. And one of the fundamentals of Quakerism, religiously and theologically is that there's that of God equally in all men and women and people in general. And that that spark is the equality aspect of this. And so it's hard to believe in that and not turn to slavery and say, something's wrong here, you know, so there were a lot of Quakers who were applying those theological ideas, those spiritual ideas to this thing. And it does give a real fertile ground to abolitionism to take root. 1775. So now we're zipping ahead almost a century. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society is, becomes the first formal anti slavery organization. It was established in Philadelphia, the Quaker City. But there are non Quakers on that, on that board or whatever you call it. The leadership of that group is Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, non Quakers. This movement Is expanding. It really starts to happen in the mid-1700s, doesn't it?
- [19:10]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yes, absolutely. And Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, we'll say writ large, becomes the sort of ground zero for thinking about the contestation of slavery. And part of this is because especially as the country becomes the United States and becomes more of its own identity, Pennsylvania geographically is situated in this interesting place where it is the north, but it's right up against the South. You know, you've got Maryland, that's slaveholding, you've got Delaware, that's slaveholding. You've got all of these other states around it that are slave holding states. And it's really trying to hold this line. And so a lot of the major, like legal statutes that you will see that push abolitionist ideas come out of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. And so. And if you are an enslaved person in the south and you can get to Pennsylvania, you know, you could get to a safe haven, to a place that might be sympathetic to your humanity.
- [20:14]
Don Wildman
Yeah, it's your first stop for a major northern city. There it is. And it was also a major capital at that point in time. It's a, it's a hot of social progressiveness in terms of the Quakers right from the get go. But also lots of thinking is happening in the Enlightenment aspect of this. All those ideals are being applied. And that's the revolutionary aspect of this, which is all the stew that's changing things. And the likes of a Benjamin Franklin, who I take great pride in, were the ones who are able to wrap themselves around a new world rather brilliantly. And then obviously, like, this has to change. Are you kidding me?
- [20:54]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yes. And that's important hypocrisy.
- [20:56]
Don Wildman
Yeah, exactly. And especially when you've written these things down on paper, you know, and proudly proclaimed yourself as a new nation based on these principles, suddenly it's sort of screamingly obvious. But you're right to call that out, which is like, we still want to consign this to the comfortable place of, oh, you know, these are ancient times. You know, people weren't used to these new ideas. No, they were very used to this. These ideas.
- [21:20]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yes.
- [21:20]
Don Wildman
Anybody with a brain, certainly an educated brain, was considering the hypocrisy and very, very criminal aspect of this in terms of ideals. It was just that it was so deeply embedded. And that's what abolitionists really have to go. They're like dentists, you know, they have to go in there and say, this tooth has to come out. Sorry. You know, and that.
- [21:40]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yes, it's to the point where even Abigail Adams, the wife Of John Adams says, how is it that the loudest yelps for freedom come of slaveholders? And she was accurately pointing out this duality where it's like, wait a second, you're writing about how the king of England is oppressing you and that no taxation without representation. And you're talking about all of these ideas of freedom, liberty, equality, the age of revolution, this enlightenment period, where people are thinking deeply about what does it mean to be free, what does it mean to sort of operate with autonomy. And yet, you know, you're, you're waving the whip in the lash and you are holding people in bondage and you are preventing them from experiencing their own liberty. And, and you are creating laws that will perpetuate enslavement for generations to come. So a lot of people don't realize that common law, English common law, everything went through the father. You know, if you're, if your father died, you were left sort of penniless. If he did not hand something down to you, everything went through the father. But in slavery, they created laws where everything goes through the mother. So it's the idea that it's mothers, baby fathers, maybe. And so if you want to ensure that enslaved people stay enslaved and you create a law that says, well, if your mother was a slave, then you were a slave, because we can't necessarily tell parentage through the father, then you have this machine that allows you to keep slavery going and going and going, putting everything through really, the wombs of black women. So it's hypocrisy that knows no bounds.
- [23:26]
Don Wildman
Yeah. How did decisions made in Great Britain banning the transatlantic enslavement trade, how did that affect and begin to give spark to the abolition movement in America?
- [23:37]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Oh, that's a really good question. I point everything back to Haiti. Saint Domingue was a French colony in the Caribbean. They start their own revolution, which becomes the Haitian revolution, which leads to Haiti becoming the first sort of independent black nation in the western hemisphere. And that sparks terror in the United States, throughout all the Caribbean, throughout South America, Europe, you name it. People start to think, whoa, this is a problem, because I believe about 40% of enslaved people on the island of Haiti were African born. And so instead of saying slavery is wrong, they were like, well, maybe we should just end the trade. Like, maybe we shouldn't get African born slaves anymore. And so Great Britain really, through the sort of inspiration or maybe you should say terror of the Haitian revolution starts to say, okay, let's close the slave trade down. We're going to give people A year. We're going to announce it in 1806. We're going to make it official in 1807. But it does a couple of things in the United United States. One, people now have this urgency about, well, if the slave trade is closing, we need to get as many bodies over here as possible. And so the slave trade does really ramp up in those last years. And then people are starting to think about, okay, well, maybe at the turn of the 19th century, in the early 1800s, people start to think, maybe slavery's just going to die, maybe slavery is just going to fade out and that's going to be the end of it. And then we will maybe send black folks back to Africa or we will sort of come up with some other way of dealing with the Negro question. But one of the ways that question is answered is through technology and the expansion of the cotton gin, and cotton being this new cash crop that does not allow people to relinquish their ability to let go of slavery because it's so, so lucrative. And so in some ways, the slave trade closes, but in other ways, the domestic slave trade in the United States expands because. And this is also because of the Asian Revolution. France is in a pickle. It needs to pay off its debts. And so it says to Thomas Jefferson, hey, we have all this French territory. You want to buy it for a bargain? And Thomas Jefferson is credited with like, oh, my gosh, he gets all this territory for steel, he doubles the size of the United States. And that purchase really makes slavery enable to expand westward in ways that that would not have happened had not all these other factors been on the table.
- [26:15]
Don Wildman
That Western expansion thing, my goodness, it just affects everything, doesn't it?
- [26:19]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yes. Oh, my gosh. You want to talk about Native American removal? I mean, it's all connected. It's all connected.
- [26:24]
Don Wildman
Exactly, exactly. But I, I really am one of those is guilty of thinking of the Louisiana Purchase in that fifth grade way that I was taught. You know, it's just like that.
- [26:34]
Kelly Carter Jackson
I don't, I don't think you're an anomaly. I think that's how I was taught the Louisiana Purchase was. Thomas Jefferson got a great deal, you know, and we don't think. No, no, no. Haiti kicked France's butt. France is broke. France needs to pay its debts, and that's how it chose to do it.
- [26:52]
Don Wildman
All of which, and thank you for indulging me in this whole first chapter here, because I was really trying to get you back to your original point, which is that the abolitionist movement begins to sort of take off. In the 1830s, the movement shifts to a more universal, immediate emancipation idea.
- [27:09]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yes.
- [27:10]
Don Wildman
William Lloyd Garrison is the name you've mentioned. He begins publishing at this point, a radical paper, the liberator, in Boston. Where does William Lloyd Garrison get off doing this? Where did he come from and why?
- [27:23]
Kelly Carter Jackson
I mean, William Lloyd Garrison is probably.
- [27:27]
Don Wildman
He's a white guy, first of all.
- [27:28]
Kelly Carter Jackson
He's a white guy, white guy from new England. I actually got to see the house he was born in in newburyport, math, Massachusetts. It's still standing, and you can go see it. But he is this fervent believer in Christianity, in his faith. He believes that slavery is wrong. He actually is apprentices as a printmaker and starts publishing like our early abolitionist paper. But it wasn't as radical as what Garrison comes up with. The idea for Garrison is that no, slavery has to be immediate. It can't be this sort of gradual. Okay, we'll phase it out into apprenticeships and then go from there. He's like, no, slavery is wrong, and we need to end it. And he believes that slavery is not just legally criminal, but morally problematic. And so he develops his own newspaper, and it really takes off. It becomes the leading abolitionist newspaper. Black women and men in particular are his number one patrons. They are buying up his newspaper. They are finding out ways. We're like, okay, how can we all be in partnership with each other? We got the same ideas, like, so they really support him. And Garrison talks about this as well. He's like, the lifeblood of the liberator is the black community. And now it becomes a problem. You know, it puts Garrison's life at risk. Many times he was attacked. Many times people tried to tar and feather him. His newspaper is banned all throughout the south. All abolitionist pamphlets, newspapers, writings, publications are banned throughout the south for obvious reasons. You know. Yeah, but there were some enslaved people who. Who had literacy. I know we know that slavery has made literacy illegal, but that does not mean that enslaved people weren't able to access some of these papers and read. And a lot of these newspapers are also written in ways where if you had one literate person in the community, they could read it to the rest of the group. They could share these ideas. Really powerful.
- [29:36]
Don Wildman
Interesting to do a discussion about abolition in terms of the education movement in America, because that has huge effects that people don't even think about, because you can't spread ideas without people being able to read them in those days.
- [29:48]
Kelly Carter Jackson
And so, yes, and in the first integrated schools are from the abolitionists. I mean, I think of Oberlin College was famous for being like an abolitionist college. They're the first co ed integrated interracial college that people could attend. And schools, places like these were just unheard of.
- [30:09]
Don Wildman
I'll be back with more American history after this short break.
- [30:15]
Kelly Carter Jackson
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- [31:44]
Don Wildman
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- [32:15]
Podcast Announcer
Land a Viking longship on island shores. Scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the poisonous cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week.
- [33:05]
Don Wildman
He's a gnarly guy, Garrison. Obviously he's got he's a bold individual. 1833 he co founds the biracial American Anti Slavery society in Philadelphia, organizes a widespread campaign of public lectures, etc. He kind of, I bookend this, you know, in my way, between not just the Civil War, obviously, but also the Fugitive Slave act, which is 1850. You know, we're talking about a 20 year period when these ideas are making people squirm in America in a big way. You know, those who are able to accommodate this as something they are willing to live with, certainly economically, all this period from 1830 to 1850 is really when abolitionists starts to push against the American way.
- [33:50]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yeah.
- [33:51]
Don Wildman
And that's when Frederick Douglass comes into the picture, isn't it?
- [33:54]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yeah. Frederick Douglass escaped slavery. He tried multiple times to escape slavery. He, from the state of Maryland, he makes his way to Baltimore and eventually comes to New York and then winds up settling in New England and becomes friends with William Lloyd Garrison and really becomes Garrison's protege in a lot of ways. I mean, he's not a child, he's an adult. But they saw a unique partnership in each other. Douglass could tell his story, he publishes his story. His own narrative. Frederick Douglass narrative becomes a national best seller. And he joins Garrison on the lecture circuit. And they go all around the country, all around the North, I should say, talking about the evil of slavery, talking about how they want an immediate end to slavery, and they sort of go into business together. I mean, they really become deep friends. Now, their, their friendship, it's complicated. There's some fissures there. They go sort of back and forth, as probably any friendship would. But Douglass is picking up what Garrison is putting down. And I think Douglass really surpasses Garrison and probably rightly so. You know, I think people wanted and needed to see the face of abolitionism as an enslaved person. What is the disabilities movement says nothing for us, without us. Garrison was like, all right, I understand that this has to be a movement that includes the enslaved themselves. And also, I think Garrison was conflicted because some of his tactics or his ideas about how to end slavery were not always the same as those who were formerly enslaved. Garrison believed in moral suasion and this idea of civil disobedience and turning the other cheek and not responding to violence with violence. And a lot of black abolitionists were like, now, hold on, Garrison, listen, like, when the mob is coming to attack you, we are not turning the other cheek. We are not going to morally persuade them that slavery is wrong. And so that's kind of where Garrison and Douglass split a little bit too, where Douglass takes on a much more forceful stance. And certainly when the Civil War comes, he's out there recruiting for soldiers to fight and even sends his own son's in to fight in the Civil War.
- [36:19]
Don Wildman
It's in Douglass, because the man's a genius, that you find this capacity, unbelievable capacity to hold two ideas in his head at the same time or more. I mean, he's basically able to see the beauty of the Declaration and those principles of liberty and equality, whilst at the same time questioning obviously the United States ability to support this institution. And that tension he plays out in his work and his orations. So amazingly, for that time, I mean, amazingly, any time we would be flocking to see Frederick Douglass today, he was that much of a modern individual. You know, it moves you to think of it.
- [37:04]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yeah, I would say one of the most famous people of the 19th century. He's certainly the most photographed person of the 19th century.
- [37:11]
Don Wildman
And gorgeous. A gorgeous man on top of it all. Majestic, striking. So for all those reasons, it is an astonishing time in 1852 when he makes this famous, famous Fourth of July speech. Can you tell me about that?
- [37:24]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Oh, man. So this speech. Iconic. Iconic. That is the best way to sort of describe it. It's a long speech too. You know, back in the 19th century, people were outside giving these long one hour, two hour speeches. But.
- [37:42]
Don Wildman
But he could hold an audience, this guy.
- [37:43]
Kelly Carter Jackson
He could hold an audience. 1. What else did you have? Means? Not like the time was sort of a little bit different back then, but you would show up to this rally, to this event and you would be enthralled. You would hold on to Douglas's every word. He knew how to give a speech. He was very charismatic. He knew how to tell a story, he knew how to lure the crowd into what he was saying. And not just because he was so eloquent and sort of charismatic, but he lived a life as an enslaved person. He wasn't someone who from. Was from the outside sort of saying like, I've studied this and I think it's wrong. He's like, no, I've lived these experiences. I can tell you about what it means to, for mother to be separated from child, to have these, you know, violent whippings, to get into a physical altercation with my overseer. I mean, these are things that Douglas could talk about firsthand. But also because Douglass had literacy and he was so well read and such a scholar of the day, he could also like hone in on these ideas that were pushed in the Enlightenment, liberty and equality and humanity. And he could touch on it in a way that just resonated with people of all backgrounds.
- [39:08]
Don Wildman
The address is called what to a Slave is the Fourth of July, which of course, everyone should be reading this year. It is this address that was made to the Ladies Anti Slavery Society in Rochester, New York. And he was basically taking up the position that white Americans were not living up to their own ideals. And that's why I mentioned he was able to hold this idea. But I'm curious, I mean, in your work, in your scholarship, I'm sure you have sat and said, how did this man, what world did he see beyond the one that he was living in? Like, how would he have a mission to complete when this was a brand new idea?
- [39:46]
Kelly Carter Jackson
You know, David Blight, who is one of the most famous biographers of Frederick Douglass, calls him the prophet of freedom. And I think this word prophet is so interesting because a prophet is someone who sort of sees into the future, sees past the current moment that they're in, and can sort of predict or calculate or make these very specific predictions about what is going to happen. Douglas could do that. He could look at the past, the present, and even aspects of the future and say, this is what this is, and this is what it's going to be if you don't change, if you don't repent, if you don't get right, if you don't, you know, live up to these. These ideas. And time and time again, you could read his speech today, like right now, and you could say, oh my gosh, someone could give this speech right here in America and it would still resonate, it would still feel relevant. And I think that's because he fully understood the problem. He fully understood how slaveholders thought and how they operated, how black people thought and operated. He understood how the abolitionist movement, for all of its gifts and flaws, were thinking and operating too. And he was a few steps ahead of it. The only other person I can compare to Douglas is like a W.E.B. du Bois. Just prolific writers can't write a bad sentence, you know, just so thoughtful.
- [41:19]
Don Wildman
But even WB Dews, at least he has hope at this point, like the Civil War is behind us. You know, you talk about Douglas and all that's ahead, and it's incredible. But that's what's so interesting. To put him in the context of 250 is so fascinating because this country was not even 100 years old and it had based itself on this frontier idea that there was this world beyond what we were used to. And so Douglas is very much in the tradition of that. Of course, he's fighting against you know, horrors that are happening. But he's. He's very much in that American spirit of, like, let's try something new here, people. You know, what's wrong, let's fix it,
- [41:56]
Kelly Carter Jackson
and let's be inclusive. I mean, he's not just advocating for enslaved people. He's pushing for women's rights. He's pushing for immigrants to have rights.
- [42:03]
Don Wildman
Exactly.
- [42:04]
Kelly Carter Jackson
He cares about poverty. You know, he cares about every person that is oppressed and marginalized. He is their champion, and that's why I think he's so ahead of his time.
- [42:15]
Don Wildman
In this abolitionist movement, you have all the seats of what will become the progressive era of America.
- [42:21]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yes.
- [42:22]
Don Wildman
In the turn of the 19th to 20th century. All of those things are happening throughout the 19th century because of abolition, the engine of change that comes from these people. We have a list of folks, so I want to move us expeditiously along here. Harriet Tubman, another individual in this movement, a whole different story than Douglas. She's a woman of action, isn't she?
- [42:46]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yes. Oh, my gosh. Harriet Tubman. I mean, I know it sounds so cliche to be like Douglas and Tubman, but they are. There is a reason their names, like, cannot be said without mentioning the 19th century is because they're so central. Harriet Tubman is brilliant. She's someone who's navigating a traumatic brain injury when she is, you know, a child. She's struck in the head with a metal iron that she gets hit in the head with. She suffers greatly, and yet she has all of this courage and all of this know how to be able to navigate the terrain, to be able to get enslaved people to freedom. She takes multiple trips back and forth from the north into the south, rescuing people, saving people. She acts as a scout during the Civil War and is, you know, giving intel to the union and, you know, helping enslaved people, one of the largest groups of enslaved people get free. Over 800 people she leads into freedom. During the Civil War. She pushes for women's rights. You know, like, she's. She's pushing for the rights of the elderly, like she is doing. And she lives a long time. I mean, she dies in, like, 1913 or something. Like, she lives into the 20th century, which is incredible to me. But she has all of these highs and lows, all while maintaining her illiteracy. She never learns to read or write. And this woman is brilliant, unquestionably brilliant. And so I think of her a lot when I think of the founding of this country, when I think about America 250. When I think about who are the people that were really pushing America to be better, to be better for all people, it's Douglas and it's Tubman.
- [44:27]
Don Wildman
Yeah. I mean, her courage. You say 800 people. I mean, that's not at once. I mean, she does this dozens of times. She marches through those woods and takes that chance so many times to bring this and that group of people up and move this whole thing along. That's why I say woman of action. It's amazing.
- [44:44]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yeah.
- [44:45]
Don Wildman
William Wilberforce is a name that always. I don't know much about this person. Where does he stand in the whole pantheon here?
- [44:53]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Wilberforce. I always think of Wilberforce University and, like, one of the things that the abolitionists were known for, I think. And this is like, I don't want to get too off topic, but, like, when I think of the abolitionist movement, it is not just a movement to end slavery, although that is, like, preeminent. It is an idea to improve the lives of so many people through education, through, like, these sort of mutual aid societies where people are trying to aid and help one another as best as they possibly can. And Wilberforce is on the front lines of that, like, trying to get as many resources and help to people who are experiencing slavery, who are experiencing extreme oppression, and puts, really, his money, his efforts, his life, where his mouth is and does that day in and day out. He represents so many of these great leaders, white great leaders, that I think intricately understood that more was needed than just ending slavery, that you had to be able to create a space where black people could navigate their equality, that they could have citizenship, that they could have education, that they could become fully functioning members of society with all the rights and protections that that required. So I think of Wilberforce up there with Garrison. I think of him up there with Charles Sumner. I think of him as one of these leading abolitionists that understood early how wrong this institution was.
- [46:35]
Don Wildman
I'll be back with more American history after this short break.
- [46:45]
Podcast Announcer
Land a Viking longship on island shores. Scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the poisonous cup in Renaissance Florence.
- [46:53]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Each.
- [46:53]
Podcast Announcer
Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by history hits. There are new episodes every week.
- [47:35]
Don Wildman
I don't even have Sumner on this list. And that, that's how.
- [47:38]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Oh, Sumner. You gotta have Charles Sumner.
- [47:39]
Don Wildman
I mean, he's. No, I mean, we could go on and on. And I just wanted to mention Sojourner Truth, you know, who's so famous, famously speaking, you know, she's the great orator about slavery and equality for women. Again, this is the beginning of the world.
- [47:50]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yes. And women's rights. One of the first, I would say one of the earliest feminists would be Sojourner Truth, hands down. I mean, she's speaking out against women's rights long before Susan B. Anthony, long before Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She's going to these conventions. And we should say all these people know each other too, like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Douglas, you know, Garrison. They're all within, within the same spaces and they are all working together to push multiple platforms. And what I think is so interesting about black abolitionists in particular is that it's again, not just a movement to end slavery. It's about equality, like slavery. Ending slavery is the first step. But a lot of people were like, no, we have to go beyond that. Which is why you don't just have the 13th amendment, you have the 14th,
- [48:40]
Don Wildman
you have the 15th.
- [48:41]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Because you have to not just, just free the enslaved, you have to give them citizenship, you have to enfranchise them, you have to give them the right to vote. That doesn't extend to women at the time, but that's what people were pushing for. They wanted as many rights and protections as possible, and they're pushing for that.
- [48:57]
Don Wildman
Yeah, right. Well, we're Talking about a 200 year movement as well, that goes on forever. I mean, right to the present day. Of course. Yes, but that's the perspective that is so fascinating. Often I mentioned these shows that we're doing about 250 and people assume I'm talking about the Founding Fathers, you know, that kind of time period. And, and there are many in this country who think that 250 should be that discussion only and exclusively. And I think, no, no, no, it's. Where do those seeds go? How does this grow and how does it confront these things so boldly and bravely? And I'm so proud of that part of this country's history, the good part of it, in terms of its healing. It's fascinating, but in the context of
- [49:36]
Kelly Carter Jackson
this, people who work America, great, like really great, not in a slogan kind of way, but people who are working to Make America live to its creeds. I see those leaders as part of the founding mothers and fathers of this country. Anyone who was working for that.
- [49:55]
Don Wildman
Yeah, I mean, it gets me quite in the heart. There are so many regular folks, you know, black activists, who are doing the hard work in those offices and keeping the thing going and building it, arranging work stoppages, property damages, armed revolt is planned. Black freedom struggles have always involved a refusal to acknowledge the dehumanization, the chronic inequality, the racial oppression. You make a living at studying this kind of resistance.
- [50:23]
Podcast Announcer
Yeah.
- [50:23]
Don Wildman
How do you sit that in the American story? Is it what we were just saying? Pretty much. Or is there an even greater vision seen by those who embrace this?
- [50:33]
Kelly Carter Jackson
So I tell people very broadly that I study the lived experiences of black people, which feels very big and broad. But I see black American history in particular, as a history of refusal. And when I say refusal, I mean black people are refusing ill treatment, they're refusing slavery, they're refusing human indignities. And the way refusal manifests itself is, like, multifold. I mean, there's so many different ways in which we see black people working for freedom. Never just for themselves, always for the collective, always for everyone. And that, to me, is what's so important, inspiring about studying black resistance, is that it's not this isolated. You get mine, I'mma get yours. You know, like. Or I'm going to mine, you get yours kind of attitude that we see how one of the greatest antidotes to white supremacy is solidarity and how black people are so good at creating coalitions with white Americans, with Native Americans, with Asian Americans, with poor white people, like, finding common ground that allows everyone to live free and live well. And so studying these people. Yeah, it inspires me in ways that makes me think about, okay, well, how in my own moment, if I were living then, but I'm living now, what would I be doing that would help sort of further the cause? And, I mean, being a writer, being a professor, being someone who's like, I have to tell the story. I am a storyteller, and the best way I can do that is through the pen. Well, I mean, the pen was the most powerful thing that abolitionists had. Not just the printed word on the page, but being able to spread information and awareness about things that were wrong to call it out, I think that's one of the greatest tools that we have now. It can be used in both directions. You know what I mean? Propaganda is also a thing. But I just. I cannot relinquish my. Just deep appreciation for People that were doing the work in the face of insurmountable odds. If you had told someone in 1831, you know, oh, slavery's gonna be over soon, nobody would believe that slavery was going to be forever. It was the most profitable, lucrative thing. I mean, we kind of treat people like that when we say, you know, oh, AI is not gonna last, or the Internet's not gonna really be a thing. It's gonna end. We can't imagine a world without the Internet. We can't imagine. A lot of people can't imagine a world without AI or what the future will look like. But, like, these things aren't permanent. Nothing is permanent. All the change that we see comes through activism, comes through people challenging, comes through people pushing to make things different or better. And so I want to be able to think like that as well, to be optimistic.
- [53:38]
Don Wildman
Does it still astonish you? It does to me when you consider how entrenched this was. And also so given how much had been articulated so brilliantly by the likes of Douglas and the rest in that 20 year period, 18. Well, 30, really. 1830s to 1860, that there would be a war fought over this. I would have thought, given the, the economic benefits of slavery, when you didn't have to be guilty of being an enslaver, that you would sort of let it, give it a pass, you know, if you were in the north and say, okay, you guys have your nation, we'll do our stuff and we'll, we'll be friends like that. That instead the most incredible war happens. That is agonizing. Yeah, it just astonishes me that. And again, part of the 250 story because, wow, this nation was willing to go to the mat over this whole thing and come out the other side more. Hopefully. Yeah, not easily, but hopefully.
- [54:35]
Kelly Carter Jackson
I think of black abolitionists in particular, who said, and I'm paraphrasing, but sort of summarizing their beliefs, that, that because slavery starts in violence and slavery is sustained through violence, slavery would only be overthrown with violence. That, that we should not be surprised by a civil war. That these ideas of white supremacy are so addictive and so attractive that people would literally be willing to put their lives on the line to maintain their power, to maintain their wealth, to maintain their authority. That. That should not surprise us that people were willing to shed blood. What boggles my mind is how I understand how you get slaveholders to fight for slavery. That makes complete sense for me. Right. They're protecting their assets, their wealth, their identity. But how do you get white Northerners to do that, too, to say, no, this is wrong. You can get. Sure, I understand how you get black soldiers to fight. You know what I mean? Like, that makes sense to me. But. But to be able to get the country, all of the Union, to say, no, this is wrong.
- [55:49]
Don Wildman
Well, back to your original point that you made earlier about the fact that many of those people thought it would just fade, including Abraham Lincoln. Oh, yeah, you know, let's trap this in the South. Let's not let it go out West. And, you know, those lands are fallow. They're not producing as much as they used to. Eventually, it'll just peter out, because free labor, as you know, which is the sort of industrialized labor force being paid, will take over as a system. That was the notion.
- [56:15]
Kelly Carter Jackson
And black people will just send them back to Africa, literally. Like, Abraham Lincoln is like, he's got a colonization scheme. He's like, y', all, can we just send you back? And Douglass is like, no, we built this country. We are Americans. We are not going back to Africa. Like, I mean, the American abolitionist society pushes colonization schemes for a long time. They don't have great success, but people could not imagine a nation with free black people all over the country. Like, sure, maybe in the north, but they couldn't imagine that in the south and what that would entail. And so I do think that you have these visionaries who are able to imagine something more. And what I also think is incredible about the abolitionists is that they're only 1% of the population. 1%. You know, it's not all the North. The north is mostly indifferent, apathetic, or even in support of slavery because they work in a textile factory or because they are benefiting from slavery directly or indirectly in some way. You're talking about a small faction of people that were seen as fanatics, that were seen as radicals, that were not waiting on consensus. You know, they weren't like, well, we need a majority to vote, like, or we need to get everybody on board. It's like, no, this is wrong. And we're going to force this institution whether you like it or not. And.
- [57:41]
Don Wildman
And they're not me as cynical.
- [57:43]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yeah, and not cynical. Not cynical at all.
- [57:46]
Don Wildman
That's what's amazing to me as a tremendous cynic, a person raised by cynics. I know cynicism, and it's not a productive way to think. It doesn't change a thing.
- [57:57]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Oh, man.
- [57:58]
Don Wildman
You sit down on yourself and you surround yourself with your. Your fellow cynics, and nothing shifts. And black People in America from the get go have known that better than anyone and have carried forth an uncynical attitude to today that says, yeah, there's a lot we're pissed off about and we're willing to take measures against that and et cetera, et cetera, but we're not willing to be cynical because that will not change anything.
- [58:22]
Kelly Carter Jackson
No, it won't. I mean, I am a rose colored glasses, glass heffle, optimistic, future, forward thinking person. That's just how I am. But I think it's because, you know, the future doesn't exist yet. And so, like, we know what the past is, we know what the present is, but the future could be anything, which means that we have the ability to shape it, to mold it, to sort of conjure it into being. And that, for me, is really exciting to think of. Like, what could be possible, you know, if you had told someone in 1776, you know, we're going to go to the moon. We're going to go to the moon, we're going to land on the no. 1. Like, how you didn't even have airplanes. How could you go to the moon? Like, that is just, you know, impossible. But, like, that is what I think is so limiting about, like, racism and sexism is that when you cap someone's ability to be their full selves, to. To have full inclusion, to, like, think expansively about possibility and, and what people can accomplish, there are no limits. There are l. No limits. Like, I, I think about the, the story in the Bible where. What is it, the Tower of Babel, where they're like, all these people came together and they're like, we're going to build a building in, into outer space. And God's like, oh, snap, they might do this. Like, when you have solidarity, when you have a common ground, when you have commitment and dedication, when you're willing to make sacrifices. That's why the abolitionists were so powerful. You don't need large numbers. Give me a small group of dedicated people, forward thinking visionaries that are willing to make sacrifices and stuff will change dramatically.
- [60:16]
Don Wildman
Yeah. And they were following a truth, a universal truth.
- [60:19]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yes.
- [60:19]
Don Wildman
And so we learn from them in this time that despite the dreary days we may be going through the divisiveness and polarized feelings, those cynical feelings. There are those of our past who we have talked about for a half an hour here, here, who are the inspiration for the future that even we need to live through. We need that vision now.
- [60:40]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yes.
- [60:40]
Don Wildman
We have that in our history. Thank you, Frederick Douglass. Sojourner Truth and all the rest. And thank you, Kelly Carter Jackson, for taking us through this.
- [60:48]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Thank you.
- [60:49]
Don Wildman
Amazing conversation. Thank you.
- [60:51]
Kelly Carter Jackson
This was so. You've given me hope. You have. Like, you have just. I've been doing a lot of 250 conversations and, you know, it's very easy to be cynical. It's very easy be like, womp, womp, another celebration, but it ain't cynical.
- [61:04]
Don Wildman
Time. Yeah, we need hope, you know, right now I'm speaking from the campus of the University of Maryland for those listening, and I am on the board of what's called National History Day. And thousands of kids come together every year to do the national finals of this History Day operation that's throughout the country. Boy, there's no cynicism there. Kids of all sorts are excited about the stories of history, excited about the time they're in. They don't know all those reasons why they should be, oh, you know, it's not a good time. The media, you know, concentrates so much on it. But you and I have had a conversation that I hope inspires others to feel the way I feel anyway, which is really hopeful that we'll get through this. And that's because harder things have been gotten through before.
- [61:47]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
- [61:50]
Don Wildman
Look to these heroes. Kelly Carter Jackson is a professor of Africana studies at Wellesley College near Boston, Massachusetts. She's the author of two books you should get and others as well, but we refuse a forceful history of black resistance. So much of what we talked about is in there, as well as the much awarded force and black abolitionists and the politics of violence. Boy, those would be great Capra readers. Right on this. We last spoke to Professor Carter Jackson on this series in September 2025. Episode 315. Revisit that one. Wherever you get your podcasts, it's about John Brown's raid. Kelly, you also do a podcast or two, right?
- [62:28]
Podcast Announcer
Yes.
- [62:29]
Kelly Carter Jackson
So I am on the this Day podcast and all this year we are doing an America 250 extravaganza where we are looking at 50 weeks that shaped America. So every week we are touching on a new facet of American life that was just transformative. We are looking at the moon landing. We are looking at the Stonewall riot. We just covered Harry Truman desegregating the United States military. It's been really fun to do. And then I have another podcast that is all about Reconstruction, America's unfinished promise. And it's with Malcolm Gladwell and Barack Obama, and it's anywhere you get your podcasts. And it's been really fun to do.
- [63:11]
Don Wildman
You deigned to speak with Don Wildman. Thank you.
- [63:17]
Kelly Carter Jackson
I cannot.
- [63:18]
Don Wildman
All right. Thank you, Kelly.
- [63:20]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Thank you. Anytime. My pleasure.
- [63:23]
Don Wildman
Hey, thanks for listening to American history hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American history hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support. This July 4th at Lowe's, get up to 45% off select major appliances plus save $80 on a select Char Broil Performance Series. Gas Grill now 299. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's. Lowe's. We help you save valid through 78 while supplies last. Selection varies by location.
- [64:21]
Podcast Announcer
See lowe's.com for more details.
- [64:23]
Kelly Carter Jackson
Visit your nearby Lowe's.
- [64:29]
Podcast Announcer
You're on the banks of the Thames. It's 1666 and the city is a towering inferno. In front of you, the great fire rages through the Stuart capital. If you're visiting London this summer, let me, Dan Snow, historian and born and raised Londoner, be your personal guide. In a brand new series of audio walking tours from history hit. I tell you the stories of where some of England's most explosive history happened. We'll follow the destructive path of the great fire of London and explore where and how King Charles I first met his grisly end. All you need is your smartphone and the voice map app. Using your location, it triggers the story automatically so you can keep your phone in your pocket and your eyes on the history as you walk. Step into London's past. Download VoiceMap from your app store or go to VoiceMap Me Historyhit. That's VoiceMap Me Historyhit hit.