Conceived in Liberty (Sponsored By Al and Martha Pearson)

With his newest book, American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765-1795, Pulitzer Prize winning historian Edward Larson enters the contentious modern debate among historians and journalists about the founding period of U.S. History. Larson examines whether the American Revolution was waged to preserve slavery and whether the Constitution was a pact with slavery or a landmark in the antislavery movement. In this lecture, Larson will reexamine the words that gave birth to a nation and will explore the tensions between liberty and slavery during the Revolutionary Era in American history -- a period that witnessed both the first great emancipation of enslaved persons and a doubling down on slavery. Unlike much history of this period, Larson’s book highlights the urgency of liberty through the voices of Black Americans. The depth of the contradictions between freedom and bondage present at the founding helps explain the enduring legacy of slavery that Americans confront today.