. >> frederick douglass says it is the cruelest master who brings you very close -- the good masters someone who -- you are eating from his table and wearing his hand me down clothes and have a lot of liberty but that is the cruelest master because he brings you so close but at the same point you don't have your liberty. jennings eventually wanted his freedom but also hercules who is george washington's slave, he ran away. how deep was paul jennings's motivation to gain his freedom? >> let me say as someone who was responsible for interpretation at monticello and montreal your visitors will come and want the interpreter to assure them that jefferson, madison, they were good masters and i will not answer such a question directly and instead what i'd do is quote frederick douglass saying the feeding and clothing of me cannot atone for taking my liberty away. it wasn't so much the living conditions of slaves in the upper south at this time that was the most profound and bawling parts of being a slave but as you say was the lack of freedom, the inability to transfer the fruit of your own

as frederick douglass says liberty is meaningless when the right to utter one's opinion has ceased to exist. ann coulter is not just a champion of freedom of speech. she practices it feverishly every single day and i will leave you with us. i think the most accurate comment about ann's book came from "the american spectator." "mugged" is not just a book, it's a public service. i agree with that wholeheartedly. [applause] i would take that kind of public service over a community organizer and a day. please join me in welcoming ann coulter. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. thank you. i hope this won't be like chris christie of the convention where he got a much bigger welcome than an ex. i came back to the responsible choice, and mitt romney and i'm hoping my introduction is not going to be longer than my speech. acus i'm going to try something all-new. i always worked very hard on my speeches and i write them all out, rearrange them and make sure they flow properly and make sure there are no jokes in them and then memorize them. i have no speech for this because i'm on a book tour b

he closed for douglas and i don't have it memorized, but it was frederick douglass talking to a group of abolitionists and you always wonder what you're going to do. but i ask of you is do nothing. if you're doing but that has caused us trouble, please leave us alone. let us stand on her own two feet if we can and if we fall, let that happen. just please stop dealing with us. and boy was he right, all of the liberal dooming. the black marriage rates you agree to my first job for were higher than the white rates for most of the 20th century. the residents of the great society programs kicked in the suddenly the requirement was removed from the families now come used to be widows of dependent children suddenly had destroyed the black family as they're coming out of the rural south come in needing to go through the immigrant experience, just a generation or two out of slavery they were doing better than they were once was great society programs kicked in. everything allegedly to help black people is never to help black people. it was to help them feel good about themselves. it was to pus

if we remind people that it takes struggle, it takes protest, as frederick douglass said, if there isno protest, there is no progress, then people get out in the streets. i think, as i said, bubbling under the surface, there is that movement. if it was 1959, and i told you there is going to be a civil rights movement, most people would think that i was crazy, and yet, a few months later, these four students take over the woolworth's, and that set off a new wave of civil rights activism. tavis: there are a great number of people in this book whose names i expected to find. i see ella baker, thurgood marshall, others. does that say dr. seuss? >> yes. tavis: how did dr. seuss and make this hall of fame? >> what people did not know about him, before he was a famous children's author, he was an editorial cartoonist, and a lot of his children's books have a subtle but very obvious to some people, if you look for it, social-justice a theme. there is one metaphor for hitler. it is about a bully who abuses its power, -- his power. there is a book about two sides, two different groups of people

i am a big fan of frederick douglass. i want you to think of what courage it took for a slave to stand where he stood and cite the declaration of independence, not something that is foreign to this nation, but the founding document of the nation. he cited that as exhibit a. and what was wrong with slavery. exhibit a. you don't need to go to any other shores or ideology. was our founding of ideology. how could you be inherently equal and have sleeves and be featured in other ways? he understood that. so, we fought a great war, you go to gettysburg and what does he say? it is up to less, the living to make it all worthwhile. really living to the we have the opportunity to find that amount of time to make it work. you disagree with someone. that person's motives must be bad. that's not the case. i don't think that the motives were bad. you could probably say you know that he is a man that is always upset about doing something, but he contributed. washington did not want to go. hamilton was young and you know he wanted to mak

be we're not going to get where we need to go easily they're not going to give us a pass as frederick douglass famously said at the time of evolution power concedes nothing without a demand it never has and it never will in my view you know what we need is to bring that demand not only into the streets but also into the voting booth that we must stand up and set the agenda and fight to move us forward the politics of fear which basically says you need to be quiet in the voting booth and as basically brought us everything that we're afraid of if you look back over the last ten years this politics of fear which has just been drummed away at since nader bush gore and told us to be quiet what we've seen is that silence is not an effective political strategy and the politics of fear has actually brought us everything we were afraid of from the massive bailouts for wall street much bigger under obama than it was under bush the offshoring of our jobs the undermining of our wages with these continued expansion of free trade agreements that we are getting with obama who has massively expanded them the

a tree down near the historic home of frederick douglass. >> i think we're in good shape. we've had minimal flooding up to now. this is still a threat over the next four to eight hours of some flooding on the potomac. >> reporter: the mayor's group headed to northeast where we found crews removing this tree from ebart street. residents thankful it was only a car damaged when the tree came down. >> the most important thing, there's no life lost and that's the main thing. >> reporter: because of the strong winds last night and early this morning, there are trees down across the district, but the good news, as soon as they came down, there were crews to pick them up. crews working right here on calvert street northwest removing a big tree here. even with all the downed trees no one was injured and power outages were restored quickly for the most part. >> they were here as soon as i woke up, so we're pretty happy with their response. >> it's obvious pepco was taking this event very seriously and i want to commend them. >> reporter: back out live here in upper northwest, this i

i am a big fan of frederick douglass. i want you to think of what courage it took for a slave to stand where he stood and cite the declaration of independence, not something that is foreign to this nation, but the founding document of the nation. he cited that as exhibit a. and what was wrong with slavery. exhibit a. you don't need to go to any other shores or ideology. was our founding of ideology. how could you be inherently equal and have sleeves and be featured in other ways? he understood that. so, we fought a great war, you go to gettysburg and what does he say? it is up to less, the living to make it all worthwhile. really living to the we have the opportunity to find that amount of time to make it work. you disagree with someone. that person's motives must be bad. that's not the case. i don't think that the motives were bad. you could probably say you know that he is a man that is always upset about doing something, but he contributed. washington did not want to go. hamilton was young and you know he wanted to mak

i would like to talk about a statement made by frederick douglass, one of the former slaves who found freedom in the underground railroad and got assistance from the abolitionists up there up north. he said that he found that some of the slave masters who were or claimed to be the most christian were some of the most severe with their treatment and punishment towards the slaves. my question is with some of the individuals that you researched, how did they reconcile god and slavery in the building of the christian nation? >> this is a great question. there's so much to say on this subject. i'll try to say it little and concisely. as i suggested earlier, you can go into these debates and read what they said. i quote it that defense at length because it's important to understand what slave owners and what defenders of slavery had in their head. they thought they were moral people mostly, and there was an entire industry of parsing the bible for language that either defended or failedded to criticize slavery. a great deal. i mean, for example, jesus never explicitly condemned it, so it mu

my parents would read to me the words of and thomas jefferson, the writings of frederick douglass and poetry of our ancestors. allow me to take the liberty today that i have taken one other time as a democratic national convention. i was so energized to be a part of a convention that was historic and first recognize with in its platform the truth that i had felt in my of life that we must recognize the equal rights been under the law in every area including the right to marriage. i am so proud of my president for all he has done. i will work until the last hour to see president obama reelected. [cheers and applause] i stand with obama because i stand for the quality. whether it is a woman's right to make the same money when she works the same job as a man or whether it is somebody who served in the military no matter who they are, no matter who they love. if they have courage, if they have commitment, and if they have the capacity, i want them out there keeping america states. as i stood there, i recited the call of my childhood. i will recite it now, taking a liberty to change one wo

. >> frederick douglass says it is the cruelest master who brings you very close -- the good masters someone who -- you are eating from his table and wearing his hand me down clothes and have a lot of liberty but that is the cruelest master because he brings you so close but at the same point you don't have your liberty. jennings eventually wanted his freedom but also hercules who is george washington's slave, he ran away. how deep was paul jennings's motivation to gain his freedom? >> let me say as someone who was responsible for interpretation at monticello and montreal your visitors will come and want the interpreter to assure them that jefferson, madison, they were good masters and i will not answer such a question directly and instead what i'd do is quote frederick douglass saying the feeding and clothing of me cannot atone for taking my liberty away. it wasn't so much the living conditions of slaves in the upper south at this time that was the most profound and bawling parts of being a slave but as you say was the lack of freedom, the inability to transfer the fruit of your own

. >> frederick douglass says it is the cruelest master who brings you very close -- the good masters someone who -- you are eating from his table and wearing his hand me down clothes and have a lot of liberty but that is the cruelest master because he brings you so close but at the same point you don't have your liberty. jennings eventually wanted his freedom but also hercules who is george washington's slave, he ran away. how deep was paul jennings's motivation to gain his freedom? >> let me say as someone who was responsible for interpretation at monticello and montreal your visitors will come and want the interpreter to assure them that jefferson, madison, they were good masters and i will not answer such a question directly and instead what i'd do is quote frederick douglass saying the feeding and clothing of me cannot atone for taking my liberty away. it wasn't so much the living conditions of slaves in the upper south at this time that was the most profound and bawling parts of being a slave but as you say was the lack of freedom, the inability to transfer the fruit of your own

my parents would read to me the words of toand thomas jefferson, the writings of frederick douglass and the poetry of our ancestors. allow me to take the liberty today that i have taken one other time as a democratic national convention. i was so energized to be a part of a convention that was historic and first recognize with in its platform the truth that i had felt in my of life that we must recognize the equal rights been under the law in every area including the right to marriage. i am so proud of my president for all he has done. i will work until the last hour to see president obama reelected. [cheers and applause] i stand with obama because i stand for the quality. whether it is a woman's right to make the same money when she works the same job as a man or whether it is somebody who served in the military no matter who they are, no matter who they love, if they have courage, it they have commitment, and if they have the capacity i want them out there keeping america states. as i stood there, i recited the call of my childhood. i will be cited now taking a liberty to change one w

here's a letter from frederick douglass writing to howard in 1880 that he appreciates howard's sentiment and support for having blacks go to west point, but later in the letter, he digresses into a very bitter set of paragraphs talking about christians aren't necessarily the best people in the world to be criticizing anybody else for how well they treat their brothers. later in life, he settles into writing speeches, writing articles, writing addresses, and as an example of that, i pulled out one that we have here, which is a text of an essay on the influence of women in the great conflict. later in life, he's rem -- remembering about what the role of the woman was in the civil war, staying home, caring for the children, nursing the wounded, or providing letters that would build morale. he also occasionally references people who -- women who went to the front lines when their husband's were injured and taking care of them there, gives the antedote of a wife who, when the pickets are established on both sides of an upcoming conflict, comes down the middle and shoes away people stuck in th

[applause] i often start my lecture course video by holding frederick douglass' narrative in my hand walk out into -- it's got two or 300 students and i walked into the audience among students and i sort of embarrassed himself and make them squirm when i hold the booklet is a newborn child and i try to get them to think about how they too can love books that made you squirm and then i finally go back and start the class. [laughter] thank you to mirror the least fond who is the genius behind this organization and to you, mr. richards, the foundation had justice award. the american civil war does most bypassing way is commemorated every town, green and center in america who civil war monument of some kind. you have an extraordinary soldiers spread here in the middle of cleveland. i actually just visited today, extraordinary monument. unlike actually most i have seen. there are a lot of them. it is our most vexing experience that we've had to try to process. i chose the four writers that skip so well described for this book, and he said factually, both alice and is a subject of my apple

[applause] i often start my lecture course at yale by holding frederick douglass is narrative in my handout -- it has two or 300 students and i walk out into the audience among the students and embarrass myself and i make them squirm. i hold the book like it's a newborn child and i try to get them to think about how they too can love books and they get squirmy and then i finally go back and start the class. [laughter] thank you to mary louise honda who obviously is the genius behind this organization and to mr. richard's foundation that does this award. the american civil war as most of us know, at least by passing1 away is commemorating our landscape and all of every town, green and center in america has a civil war monument of some kind. you have an extraordinary soldiers and sailors monument right here in the middle of leave and i actually just visited it today. extraordinary and unlike most i have seen. and there are a lot of them. it is our most vexing experience that we have had to try to process. i chose the four riders that skip so well described and if it's actually, ralph ellis

so my parents would read to me the words of thomas jefferson -- the writings of frederick douglass, they of our ancestors. allow me to take the liberty today that i've taken one other time and that was up democratic national convention. i was so energized to be part of a convention that was historic in first recognizing with its platform the truth i had felt in my heart for my life that we must recognize equal rights under the law, the 14th amendment, and every area, including the right to marriage. [applause] i am so proud of my president for all he has done in this cause and i will work until the last hour to see president barack obama reelected. [applause] i stand with the ball because i stand for equality. whether it's a woman's right to make the same money when she works the same job as a man or whether it's somebody to serve in the military, no matter who they are, no matter who they love, that they can have courage, if they have commitments and have the capacity, i want them out there keeping america safe. [applause] as i stood there in north carolina, i recited the poll of my ch