Frederick Douglass with Peter Myers | BRI Scholar Talks: Black Intellectuals Series #2

20+ minute interviews with modern authors and scholars on topics of U.S. History and Civics.

BRI Senior Teaching Fellow Tony Williams sits down with Peter C. Myers, professor of political science specializing in political philosophy and U.S. constitutional law at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, to discuss Peter's compelling essay in Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness on Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Birmingham March. Integrating material on constitutional principles and injustice of segregation including the Letter from Birmingham Jail and the I Have a Dream speech, they draw out the gripping and important story of civil rights and explain the ways it will interest students.

Explore more Black voices from across U.S. History with our primary source based curriculum: The Plainest Demands of Justice: Documents for Dialogue on the African American Experience. Learn more at https://billofrightsinstitute.org/mkt-the-plainest-demands-of-justice. How did Ralph Ellison, prominent African-American novelist and intellectual, contribute to understanding the Black experience in America? In the first episode of our new Scholar Talk series "Black Intellectuals and the African-American Experience," BRI Senior Teaching Fellow Tony Williams is joined by Lucas Morel, Professor of Politics at Washington & Lee University and editor of several significant books on Ellison. Together, they'll reveal the unique ways Ellison wrote about the Black identity and experience during segregation and contributed to American culture broadly. What Founding values did Ellison emphasize to fellow African Americans during a time of racial discrimination? In our new Scholar Talk series "Black Intellectuals and the African-American Experience," BRI's Senior Teaching Fellow Tony Williams will be joined by a new scholar every week to discuss the unique ways Black intellectuals like Ralph Ellison, Anna Julia Cooper, and Frederick Douglass have contributed to understanding the African-American experience in America. How did they advance the struggle for civil rights and Founding ideals of equality, justice, and liberty?