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We Hold These Truths: The Global Quest for Liberty — Transcript

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0:03We hold these truths to be self-evident
0:05that all men are created equal.
0:07Does that have a counterpart in the Czech Declaration?
0:10Very much so.
0:11And it even includes that all women are equal.
0:14Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
0:16You've got to pursue it.
0:17It just doesn't happen automatically.
0:19Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
0:21I think it's spurred on revolutions in other countries.
0:24There is no doubt Thomas Jefferson influenced
0:27the French Declaration.
0:29The Declaration of Independence
0:30is one of the most influential documents of all time.
0:33But do the words still matter today?
0:36I think they're more important today, perhaps more than ever.
0:38Well, I think it was written before women had rights.
0:40And before some people were considered people.
0:43All men were not created equal when this country was founded.
0:45That's why slavery was a thing.
0:47It's basically still a man's world.
0:48Caucasian man's world.
0:50The Declaration of Independence is about a group of people
0:52who say, "Our world is not working,
0:54and we're gonna change it."
0:55These are the values I would say
0:56most Hongkongers are fighting for.
0:58I definitely think it's gonna be a good show,
1:00and I'm looking forward to seeing it.
1:01I'm Doug Ginsburg, a judge on the Federal Court of Appeals.
1:05Join me on a journey to discover the enduring legacy
1:08of our founding document, both at home and abroad.
1:18Major funding for this program was provided by...
1:25Additional funding was provided by...
1:33The words of our declaration have had a universal appeal.
1:37They've traveled through time and space
1:39and emerged in some unexpected places.
1:48Before Katrina, I had three big, big boats.
1:53Right now, I have only one small boat
1:55for me and my wife.
1:56Something to do and get some money to spend.
2:02Robert Nguyen and his wife, Lien,
2:04have shrimped in the Gulf of Mexico
2:06for more than 40 years.
2:10American fishermen, I get along with them very well.
2:14The Nguyens were among the thousands of refugees
2:16who fled Vietnam when the North Vietnamese communists
2:19won the war.
2:22I don't know about communists at all,
2:24but my father-in-law, he lived with them from North Vietnam.
2:28North Vietnam, it's very terrible.
2:31No freedom.
2:36Robert and Lien fled Saigon on her father's fishing boat.
2:39Robert's family stayed behind.
2:42My family all die in Vietnam with the war.
2:48Vietnam was once a French colony.
2:51Independence from France was the dream of Ho Chi Minh,
2:55who, as a young man, traveled to Paris,
2:57the capital of the French Empire.
2:59Paris was a crossroads of political thought.
3:02It still is.
3:03It was here that Ho Chi Minh
3:04marinated in the revolutionary stew of Marxism.
3:08[ Cannons firing ]
3:09World War II changed everything.
3:13Japan invaded Vietnam,
3:15and Ho Chi Minh went home to Hanoi.
3:18The Allies won the war,
3:20and on the day Japan surrendered,
3:22Ho Chi Minh stood in a public square in Hanoi
3:25and read his preamble to
3:27Vietnam's Declaration of Independence.
3:30"Life, liberty,
3:32and pursuit of happiness."
3:36That's right.
3:37The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence
3:40starts by quoting our declaration.
3:42Ho Chi Minh went on to say...
3:44"All the people have a right to live, to be happy and free."
3:52And yet, Ho ended up rejecting democracy.
3:56The civil war that followed pitted communist North Vietnam
3:59against the South, backed by the United States.
4:03The war claimed more than 58,000 American lives
4:07and an estimated 2 million Vietnamese.
4:10Freedom was another casualty.
4:13But right now, the communist government,
4:16the people cannot go vote.
4:18Freedom, but over there, no.
4:21Thank you, America.
4:23They had a big heart to help the refugee, 1975.
4:29Since 1776, more than 100 countries
4:32have issued a Declaration of Independence
4:35with words or ideas inspired by or derived from our own.
4:39Self-government is an extraordinary human invention.
4:42Those documents that have birthed that invention
4:47get a special place in the human treasury.
4:50The Declaration of Independence is, for sure, one of those.
4:57The Declaration was written by committee,
4:58but the chief author was a 33-year-old lawyer
5:01and plantation owner, Thomas Jefferson.
5:04It was really exciting when the New York Public Library
5:07decided to reintroduce Thomas Jefferson's
5:10draft of the Declaration to the public.
5:13It lets people see just how much change and revision,
5:17and argument went into the process.
5:19The document didn't just sort of spring in its final form
5:22from one person's head.
5:24Danielle Allen is a Harvard University professor
5:27and the author of a terrific book,
5:29entitled "Our Declaration."
5:31I'm a total Declaration of Independence geek,
5:34and so I love every single version
5:37of the Declaration that exists.
5:39I love the versions that are in the handwriting
5:42of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams,
5:44and you can actually feel their personalities at work.
5:48Jefferson drafted, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin
5:51came in and made changes,
5:52and then the big committee Congress
5:54got to take its crack at it
5:56and altered again about 25% of the document.
5:59It's really important that the Declaration was written
6:01by committee.
6:02Democratic writing means that you really push
6:05and pull to find answers,
6:08even to divisive questions that can bring people together.
6:12There was a cluster of revisions
6:13that introduced language around the idea of a divinity,
6:18and then there were a set of revisions
6:20that took out language condemning the slave trade.
6:24One, I think, is a good compromise,
6:26the one around religion.
6:27The second one, I think, was a bad compromise.
6:29-What did you mean by saying the Declaration is our patrimony?
6:32-The Declaration is our inheritance.
6:35It is something that earlier generations created
6:39to name their goal, their purpose.
6:42Their purpose was self-government,
6:46institutions resting on the consent of the governed
6:48that could deliver the safety and happiness of all the people.
6:52As such, it's the best starting point and guide
6:54we have for what it means to be democratic citizens.
6:58"We hold these truths to be self-evident..."
7:01"...that all men are created equal..."
7:03"...that they are endowed by their Creator...
7:05"...with certain unalienable rights..."
7:07"...that among these are life..."
7:09"...liberty..."
7:09"...and the pursuit of happiness."
7:13"That to secure these rights...
7:15"...governments are instituted among men..."
7:17"...deriving their just powers..."
7:18"...from the consent of the governed."
7:20"That whenever any form of government..."
7:23"...becomes destructive of these ends..."
7:25"...it is the right of the people
7:26to alter or to abolish it..."
7:28"...and to institute new government..."
7:32"...laying its foundation on such principles...
7:35"...and organizing its powers in such form..."
7:37"...as to them shall see most likely..."
7:40"...to effect their safety and happiness."
7:42The whole of political philosophy is in that sentence.
7:47The most compact definition of democracy is in that sentence.
7:53The clearest account of the rights and responsibilities
7:56of citizens is in that sentence.
8:00That's all we need.
8:03Where was that taken from?
8:05The Declaration of Independence.
8:06Yeah? That -- that doesn't sound very British.
8:09No, no, it was Americans.
8:11-Yeah? -Though, I think they got
8:12the idea from John Locke, actually.
8:14John Locke, the philosopher?
8:15Now, he was English, I think. Was he not?
8:17-Oh, yeah. -Okay.
8:18The founders were steeped in political theory,
8:22from Aristotle and Cicero to Locke and Rousseau.
8:26The Roman politician Cicero had argued that the health
8:30and well-being of the people should be the supreme law.
8:32The concept of pursuit of happiness
8:34and safety and happiness in the second sentence
8:36are a modernization of that idea.
8:39The second body of material
8:41comes from arguments about rights --
8:43rights of life and liberty and property.
8:46So the really interesting thing that happens
8:48is that the drafters of the Declaration didn't say
8:51"life, liberty, and property."
8:53They chose "happiness" instead.
8:55And in that moment, they were actually putting aside
8:59the vocabulary of the slave-holding faction.
9:02Move!
9:04Even after blood was shed at Lexington and Concord...
9:07[ Drums and fife play ]
9:09[ Gunfire ]
9:12...few Americans desired separation from Britain.
9:15-Fire!
9:16[ Gunfire ]
9:18The founders would never have declared independence without,
9:22as the Declaration put it, the consent of the governed,
9:25or at least enough of them.
9:27Print media definitely turns the tide of the revolution.
9:31Emily Sneff is an historian of the Declaration of Independence.
9:35You have newspapers that are printed,
9:37usually on a weekly basis.
9:39You have broadsides that are posted up on buildings.
9:42And then, you also have pamphlets,
9:44and you could even bind your pamphlets into a book.
9:47In January of 1776, an anonymous 47-page pamphlet
9:53appears in Philadelphia, urging a radical idea --
9:57independence.
9:59The author is a grammar-school dropout
10:02from a small town in England, a former tax collector,
10:05and a failure at most of the jobs he tried --
10:08Thomas Paine.
10:10-He gets a letter of introduction from Ben Franklin
10:14and sails for Philadelphia.
10:16So, he arrives here as someone very interested
10:18in what's happening in the colonies.
10:21Paine finds work at a magazine,
10:24finally a job at which he excels.
10:26And in language clear to the average American,
10:29he writes a pamphlet
10:31with a straightforward title, Common Sense.
10:34All of a sudden, Common Sense is shorthand
10:37for support of independence.
10:39Common Sense goes viral.
10:41In a matter of months,
10:42printers sell tens of thousands of copies.
10:45Common Sense did sell more than any other pamphlet, by far.
10:50The momentous words "Free and Independent States"
10:54in the final lines of Common Sense
10:56also will appear in the final lines of the Declaration,
11:00capital letters and all.
11:03The Continental Congress declares independence,
11:06and a rebellion becomes a revolution.
11:10[ Gunfire ]
11:16Six months after the Declaration,
11:18a free black man in Boston, named Prince Hall,
11:22decided to take the founders at their word,
11:25that all men are created equal.
11:28And he took the Declaration of Independence
11:30and grabbed a lot of its words,
11:32and rewrote it to submit a petition
11:35arguing for the abolition of enslavement.
11:37It proclaims that the many blacks
11:39held in a state of slavery
11:41"have in common with all other men a natural and unalienable
11:46right to that freedom which the great parent of the universe
11:49hath bestowed equally on all mankind."
11:53So, it's important that that vocabulary of equality
11:56in the Declaration recognizes, helping to crystallize
11:58and launch the abolitionist movement.
12:00Massachusetts denied Hall's petition,
12:03but not for long.
12:04In 1780, Pennsylvania abolished slavery,
12:07and Massachusetts followed suit three years later.
12:11The news of the Declaration travels by newspapers
12:14rather than by formal diplomatic channels.
12:17And there's a plan to get it overseas.
12:21They don't care about sending it to George III.
12:24They want France.
12:25The United States of America were born here, in Paris,
12:29when Ben Franklin signed the first Treaty of Alliance
12:34with the French.
12:35So, your country was born here.
12:48-The American Revolution inspires hundreds of foreigners
12:50to come join the fight,
12:52including the 19-year-old French nobleman
12:54Gilbert du Motiér, the Marquis de Lafayette.
12:59He joins General Washington's staff,
13:01and the two hit it off at once.
13:03Washington is old enough to be his father,
13:06and he treats Lafayette like a son.
13:08Once America has won its independence,
13:10Lafayette returns to France,
13:12now a nation on the brink of revolution.
13:17The Palais Royal is called the birthplace
13:20of the French Revolution.
13:21Actually, it was owned by the king's cousin,
13:24but it was an oasis of freedom under the monarchy.
13:28Here, you could do whatever you wanted --
13:30take a walk, visit a café, gamble, visit a prostitute.
13:35But most important of all,
13:36because the police were not allowed in,
13:39you could say what was on your mind,
13:41even about the king.
13:44Revolutionary ideas could circulate here,
13:47and they did, in pamphlets like this one,
13:50"What is the Third Estate?"
13:52The people of France were divided into three estates
13:55or assemblies.
13:57The first estate was the clergy,
13:59the second, the nobles, and the third estate was everybody else.
14:04Representatives of these three estates came together
14:07as the Estates General, an advisory body to the King.
14:11But the clerics and nobles,
14:13a tiny fraction of the population,
14:16had more votes than the common people.
14:19This pamphlet demanded more representation for the people.
14:23A spark that lit the fuse of revolution.
14:26[ Gunfire ]
14:27On July 14, 1789, a mob storms the Bastille prison,
14:33a hated symbol of royal power.
14:37A riot becomes a revolution,
14:39and Bastille Day would become France's national holiday.
14:44[ Gunfire ]
14:45This is from our Declaration of Independence.
14:48"That whenever any form of the government..."
14:52"...becomes destructive of these ends,
14:55it is the right of the people..."
14:57"...to alter or to abolish it,
14:59and to institute new government."
15:02-What do you know about the Marquis de Lafayette?
15:04-Marquis de...? -Marquis de Lafayette?
15:06I have never heard of this.
15:08Marquis de Lafayette?
15:09-No, I don't know who that is. -Okay.
15:11I only know, really, mostly about the writing
15:14of the Declaration of the Rights of Man,
15:16how it was influenced by the U.S. Declaration.
15:18Well, that's great. You're right on track.
15:20Oh, good. Okay. Yeah. [ Chuckles ]
15:25I've been invited to see a treasure
15:27at the Museum of the National Archives of France.
15:33Very glad to be here with Monsieur Francois-Henri Briard,
15:37a Supreme Court advocate and a scholar of French history
15:40and Franco-American relations.
15:44We were actually able to see and read and touch
15:47the Declaration of the Rights of Man,
15:49the draft by Lafayette.
15:52Thomas Jefferson was in Paris in 1789.
15:58So was Lafayette.
15:59And they worked together on different drafts
16:04of the French declaration.
16:06And what is interesting is that Lafayette
16:08uses the word "inalienable."
16:11It probably comes from the 1776 Declaration of Independence.
16:16-Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. -The U.S. Declaration.
16:17-"Inalienable rights," yes. -Yes.
16:20The wording may be slightly different,
16:22but the basic principles are the same.
16:26So, this is the final version as it's written out.
16:31-It is. And as you know,
16:32it was a compromise between different drafts.
16:36We, the French and the Americans,
16:38built democracy together.
16:41The American Declaration of Independence
16:43and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man,
16:46which followed it,
16:47would become models for the independence movements
16:50that swept the world in the 1800s and 1900s.
16:53I've always kind of seen France and America
16:55as kind of brothers in freedom, sisters in freedom, right?
16:58We always kind of have each other's back, right?
17:00-I couldn't agree more. -Yeah.
17:01[ Both laugh ]
17:03The French Revolution began with the promise of liberty,
17:06equality, and fraternity, or brotherhood.
17:09That's not how it ended.
17:12This is the Palace of Versailles,
17:13and it was the home of King Louis XVI
17:16and Queen Marie Antoinette.
17:18And, clearly, they lived like kings.
17:21Meanwhile, in 1789, Parisians were starving
17:25due to a poor wheat harvest and high food prices.
17:29On October 5th, thousands of hungry,
17:32angry women marched from Paris on Versailles.
17:36Lafayette was asked to accompany this march
17:40because he was at the head of the National Guard.
17:43Sabine Renault Sabloniere is a descendant
17:46of the Marquis de Lafayette.
17:48Did they get into the palace?
17:49Some of them managed to go into the palace.
17:52They killed some guards.
17:54The royal family was very afraid.
17:57Lafayette managed to climb up the apartment
18:00of the royal family, and he had this incredible idea
18:05to take the queen and her children to the balcony.
18:10-Right here? -Right here.
18:11-Yeah. -Yes.
18:12He took the queen's hand and kissed her.
18:16And all of a sudden, the mob calmed down.
18:21Lafayette saved them from the mob,
18:24but the king would eventually lose his head.
18:28And nine months later, so would the Queen.
18:32This is what we call "la terreur,"
18:35you know, the terror time.
18:37Every day, hundreds of Parisians
18:39were executed with the guillotine, you know?
18:44Yeah, it was a terrible time.
18:47The guillotine claimed more than 16,000 lives,
18:52mostly priests and nobles.
18:54You were more successful in making democracy in the U.S.
18:59than we were in France.
19:01Our revolution succeeded.
19:03The French Revolution failed.
19:06This room, this palace, really says it all.
19:10France had a small nobility, a very large peasant class,
19:15and hardly anything in between.
19:18Unlike France, the 13 colonies had a thriving middle class,
19:23150 years of virtual self-governance,
19:26and an ocean of distance from Britain.
19:30That gave them the time and space to build up
19:32functioning habits and practices of governance.
19:35We had to move from 40-kings history to a republic.
19:40So, France had the challenge of how to undo something
19:44as much as how to build something.
19:46What can you tell me about the Marquis de Lafayette?
19:49Marquis de...?
19:50He was part of the French Revolution.
19:52-Oh, all right. -He was not so popular here.
19:54In America, Lafayette is a war hero,
19:57with this park opposite the White House named after him.
20:02In fact, Lafayette took America to his grave.
20:05Lafayette had two wishes --
20:08being buried near his wife
20:11and being buried in the American soil.
20:14When he came back from his last travel in America,
20:18he brought a handful of American soil.
20:22And when he died, his son, George Washington de Lafayette,
20:26complies with his wish,
20:27and he was buried in the American soil.
20:31-Liberty, égalité, fraternité. -Okay.
20:34What does it mean to you?
20:35All French people are -- are my brothers.
20:39Do you think that the country has achieved that?
20:42I think no.
20:43The revolution, it's a permanent fight.
20:47Permanent fight?
20:48That's true everywhere, I think.
20:50-Yes, you're right. -Yes.
20:51There is some bad things in the country,
20:54but I feel like country is great.
20:58I'm lucky I was born in France because I'm a girl,
21:02because I'm queer, because of many reasons.
21:05So I'm glad I'm here because I'm free to be whoever I am.
21:09Like, I can walk in the streets, like, dressed like this.
21:13[ Both laugh ]
21:15So, the first struggle was the struggle for independence.
21:17What comes next? What's after that?
21:19Well, then you take it the step further and say,
21:20"I'm an independent person, and these are my rights.
21:27In the mid 19th century,
21:28women started working outside the home in factories like this.
21:32They were paid less than men,
21:34and they turned their wages over to their husbands.
21:37Women were, in every sense, second-class citizens.
21:40They couldn't buy land,
21:42they couldn't sign a contract, and they couldn't vote.
21:45We have life so easy, right?
21:47We go flip on the light switch,
21:49turn on the water, we flush a toilet.
21:51Even the simplest of things were difficult for them.
21:56For two days in July 1848, 300 people, mostly locals,
22:01mostly women, and mostly Quakers,
22:03held America's first convention for women's rights right here.
22:08So, when we look at the Women's Rights Convention,
22:10we look at the larger movements that are going on --
22:13abolition, temperance, the labor movement.
22:16Janine Waller is the Chief of Interpretation
22:19at the Women's Rights National Historical Park.
22:22At this point after the revolution,
22:24everyone is really trying to figure out,
22:26"What does it mean to be an American?
22:27What does it mean to be a citizen?"
22:29They weren't going to wait for justice.
22:31They were going to go find it and make justice.
22:33How did they settle on the Declaration of Independence
22:36as the document on which to base their resolution?
22:39They really wanted to find something
22:40that would speak to the soul of the nation,
22:43and there was nothing stronger
22:44than the Declaration of Independence.
22:46The Declaration of Independence gave this country a platform
22:49to move towards justice.
22:52It was familiar,
22:52and it has one of the most famous beginnings, right?
22:55"We hold these truths...
22:56"...to be self-evident, that all men..."
22:58"...that all men..."
22:59"...that all men are created equal."
23:01Well, the obvious omission there is that all men and women.
23:05"...that all men and women..."
23:06"...that all men and women are created equal."
23:09The Declaration of Sentiments
23:11takes the Declaration of Independence
23:13and then reworks it a bit to make it applicable to women.
23:16Do you think the Declaration of Independence
23:18didn't really apply to women before that?
23:20-I think you should ask a man that question.
23:23Are you accepting women as equals,
23:25and are you allowing women the opportunity to go out
23:28and pursue happiness and life and liberty?
23:31When the Declaration of Independence
23:32says "all men are created equal,"
23:34they are using the word "men" in a universal fashion.
23:38But even as they did that, they were reserving power
23:41for a subset of humankind.
23:43That's where they made their mistake.
23:45History doesn't arc towards justice on its own.
23:48It takes people who are willing to make those bold statements.
23:54And that was how they wanted to start the convention,
23:57recognizing that the American experiment is incomplete.
24:00And I can't believe how well they wrote it.
24:03And it shows how inspiring words can be.
24:07One attendee was a former slave, Frederick Douglass,
24:11who covered the convention in his newspaper,
24:13The North Star.
24:15From there, it was picked up across the nation.
24:18Some cases for lauding, some cases for ridicule.
24:21You know, "Look at what the women
24:22in Seneca Falls are doing,"
24:23and "Look at what the women in Seneca Falls are doing."
24:26The convention adopted nine resolutions,
24:28the most controversial of which was to grant women the vote.
24:31I can't vote a woman into office until I can vote.
24:35Once I can vote, I can run for office.
24:36Every time I see "first woman," it makes me angry
24:39that somebody had to punch through that barrier.
24:45Women didn't get the vote until the 20th century.
24:48Meantime, a 19th-century invention
24:50gave them a taste of freedom.
24:53Women and girls, especially, could get on a bicycle
24:56and go much greater distances than they ever could before
24:59and do it alone.
25:00Susan B. Anthony said that it was the single
25:02most important technological advancement
25:05for the independence of women.
25:08I get on my bike, and it does feel like freedom.
25:18Recognize this American revolutionary?
25:21Simon Bolivar, the South American Revolutionary,
25:25the George Washington of Latin America,
25:28and the most important figure in its history.
25:31As a young man, Simon Bolivar traveled to the United States.
25:35He admired the American Revolution.
25:37Early in the 19th century,
25:39independence was slowly catching on,
25:41but nowhere with more success than in Latin America.
25:45Bolivar drove the Spanish from what are now Colombia,
25:48Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Venezuela,
25:51and the country named for him, Bolivia.
25:54It was the first of four great waves of independence
25:57that invoked the spirit of the American Revolution.
26:01Bolivar sought to create a strong federal union,
26:04a United States of Latin America.
26:07Instead, each nation went its own way.
26:11Venezuela was the first nation that Bolivar liberated.
26:15And in his honor, Venezuela gave the statue to the people of...
26:20Miami.
26:25Miami is a vibrant, multicultural city
26:28that's become a haven
26:29for Latin Americans seeking a new life.
26:32And tens of thousands of Venezuelans
26:34are making new lives here.
26:39When designer Angel Sanchez moved to the U.S.
26:42from Venezuela in 2002,
26:44he was already well-known back home.
26:47Venezuela was amazing country, still is amazing country.
26:50So that was a big decision for me to leave my country.
26:53At his studio in Miami, he creates evening
26:56and bridal wear for an international clientele.
27:00Very well-educated people feel forced
27:02to leave the country for so many reason,
27:04for security, for to do something that they wanted.
27:09After more than two decades of dictatorship,
27:12more than half of all Venezuelans now live in poverty.
27:15More than 7 million have left the country.
27:18Deep in our hearts, as Venezuelans,
27:21we feel like we don't have a country anymore.
27:25Mariela Briceno is a graduate of a program
27:27that helped her start her own business.
27:30Focus Mujeres Emprendedoras,
27:32or women entrepreneurs in English,
27:34is a program developed by CISNEROS
27:36to help Venezuelan women start their businesses in the U.S.
27:40Maria Arcaya is the founder of Focus Mujeres Emprendedoras.
27:45Being an entrepreneur can sometimes
27:47be lonely and a challenge,
27:48and for these women who are immigrants, even more so,
27:51and they come to the program seeking support and a community
27:54that they can be a part of.
27:57Saja Tovar completed the program,
27:59and she proved to be very enthusiastic and a hard worker.
28:03Saja works as Angel Sanchez's assistant,
28:06consulting with him about designs
28:08and creating the samples for his collections.
28:11I follow his career since I was a kid.
28:14Mm-hmm.
28:15When I graduate from high school,
28:18I study fashion design.
28:20She didn't have any opportunities.
28:22She feels frustrated.
28:23She came from a country that was in bad, bad shape.
28:27Saja came to the U.S.
28:29to pursue her dream of starting her own company.
28:32When I came here, it wasn't easy.
28:35I work a lot.
28:37I always keep in mind to save money,
28:40to create my own business.
28:44Her business, Saja Swimwear,
28:46sells custom bathing suits created and sewn by Saja.
28:51So right now, your business, your office, your factory,
28:55your distribution is all in this room.
28:57All in this room. Yeah.
28:59So, you're very enterprising?
29:01Yes. [ Chuckles ]
29:03I think, at the end of the day,
29:05when we came here to United States,
29:07we were looking for freedom,
29:10and we were looking for a better future.
29:13And that's the pursuit of happiness.
29:15"We hold these truths to be self-evident..."
29:19"...life, liberty and pursuit of the happiness."
29:22What do you think?
29:23I love it. [ Both laugh ]
29:27I live my American dream here, in the United States.
29:29My favorite part is liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
29:34That's why I came here.
29:37From the day our
29:38Declaration of Independence was signed,
29:40it has, like a beacon, attracted immigrants to our shores.
29:44Some come to save their very lives, some for greater liberty,
29:49others to pursue their happiness.
29:52They have made us a better nation
29:54because they not only embrace our ideals, they live them.
30:03As the Declaration influenced
30:05the independence movements in South America,
30:08it also inspired a liberation movement
30:11here at home, with its own charismatic leader,
30:14Frederick Douglass.
30:16Although denied a formal education,
30:19he was to become one of the greatest orators
30:21in American history.
30:23When he was 7 or 8,
30:25Frederick Douglass was sent from his home
30:27in the eastern shore of Maryland
30:28to this neighborhood in Baltimore,
30:30near the waterfront, to live with a family named Auld
30:33and be a companion to their young son.
30:36Against her husband's wishes,
30:38Mrs. Auld taught Frederick the alphabet.
30:42Once armed with his ABCs,
30:44he would offer bread to white children to read to him,
30:47and in this way, he taught himself to read.
30:51As a young man, Douglass worked in the Port of Baltimore
30:54as a skilled caulker and shipbuilder.
30:57In 1838, at the age of 20,
31:00he borrowed identification papers from a free black sailor
31:03and fled to freedom via the Underground Railroad.
31:07The Founding Fathers had good intentions,
31:09but, again, when this country declared
31:13the Declaration of Independence,
31:14you know, there was still slavery.
31:16This whole city we're in here,
31:17most of it was built on the back of slavery.
31:19And that's one of those things that perhaps we're uncomfortable
31:21to speak about, but it's very much true.
31:24Four years after attending
31:26the Women's Convention in Seneca Falls,
31:28Douglass would give a landmark speech,
31:30pointing out the hypocrisy in the Declaration of Independence.
31:35"What to the American slave is your 4th of July?
31:39What have I or those I represent
31:41to do with your national independence?
31:44Are the great principles of political freedom,
31:47natural justice, embodied in the Declaration of Independence
31:50extended to us?"
31:53I didn't understand it emotionally, when I read it,
31:58and we didn't have liberty and freedom
32:02and the pursuit of happiness at the time.
32:04Ever hopeful, Douglass challenged his fellow countrymen
32:08to live up to the words of the founders.
32:11"They were statesmen, patriots, and heroes, he said.
32:16With them, justice, liberty, and humanity were final.
32:20Not slavery and oppression."
32:24The man whose ideals Douglass invoked,
32:26the principal author of the Declaration of Independence,
32:29was himself torn over slavery.
32:31He helped end the transatlantic slave trade.
32:34Yet, at his death, he held more than 100 slaves.
32:38Jefferson feared for the future, a country so torn
32:42between slavery and freedom that it would divide.
32:45And, of course, that is exactly what happened.
32:48In 1861, shortly after Lincoln becomes president,
32:51the Southern states secede to form a new nation,
32:55and America is plunged into a horrific civil war.
32:59[ Drumming ]
33:00[ Indistinct shouting ]
33:01[ Cannons firing ]
33:04[ Gunfire ]
33:05In the second year of the war,
33:06Lincoln strikes a blow for freedom
33:08by issuing an executive order
33:10that would free 3 million slaves.
33:13Today, we know that order as the Emancipation Proclamation.
33:17He famously said, "As I would not be a slave,
33:19so I would not be a master.
33:21That is the only definition of democracy I know.
33:23And anything that varies from that to any degree
33:26is not democracy."
33:30In the third year of the war,
33:31he delivers one of the greatest speeches in our history --
33:34the Gettysburg Address.
33:36"Four score and seven years ago,
33:39our fathers brought forth on this continent
33:41a new nation, conceived in liberty
33:43and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
33:47Which is true.
33:48We are all created equal.
33:50You cut me, I bleed red, you cut you, you bleed red.
33:52No matter height, weight, race, sex, gender,
33:56we're all created equal.
33:58Lincoln thought the world would little note
34:00nor long remember his words.
34:02But here they are, memorialized in marble,
34:05reminding us of the ideals set forth in the Declaration.
34:12In the 20th century, three waves of independence
34:16would follow the one that had swept Latin America
34:18in the 19th century.
34:20Each of the three would shape the history of the Czech people.
34:33At the end of the First World War,
34:34four empires lay in ruins --
34:37the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian.
34:41And from those ruins rose new nations in a second
34:45wave of independence, including Czechoslovakia.
34:50Tomas Masaryk, philosopher, statesman,
34:54and a founder of Czechoslovakia.
34:57During a stay in Washington in 1918,
35:00Masaryk would draft his country's
35:02Declaration of Independence.
35:05Adéla Gjuricová is a professor
35:07at the Institute for Contemporary History.
35:10Could you tell me what the representatives in Washington
35:13did to relate the declaration to that of America?
35:17So, while declaring independence
35:19in the so-called Washington Declaration
35:21on the 18th of October, they also said,
35:24[ Speaking in Czech ]
35:29And in English, this says,
35:31"We accept the American principles
35:34as laid down by President Wilson,
35:36the principles of liberated mankind,
35:38of the actual equality of nations and of governments,
35:41deriving all their just power
35:44from the consent of the governed."
35:46So, there is this open reference,
35:48which, of course, was partly a real admiration
35:52for the American history and democracy
35:56and partly a tactical step.
35:58The Czech Declaration cites
36:00the American Declaration of Independence,
36:02the French Declaration of the Rights of Man,
36:05the ideals of Abraham Lincoln,
36:07and the 14-point proposal of President Woodrow Wilson
36:10for shaping the post-war world,
36:13including self-determination for the peoples of Central Europe.
36:17The document provided full equality for women
36:20before American women even had the right to vote.
36:23It was freedom, it was democracy,
36:26and it was after 500 years.
36:28We were a unique country, so it was amazing.
36:30Sad to say, Czechoslovakia's independence
36:33lasted barely a generation.
36:36On March the 12th, 1938, without warning,
36:40the German armies marched over the Austrian border.
36:47Why was Austria important to Hitler?
36:51It put him on the southern flank of Czechoslovakia,
36:54and Czechoslovakia was the key
36:56to the control of Eastern Europe.
36:58The European democracies,
37:00led by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain,
37:02agreed to let Hitler seize
37:05the western part of Czechoslovakia
37:07and showed the world what happens
37:08when you appease an aggressor.
37:11Six months later,
37:12Hitler swallowed the rest of Czechoslovakia.
37:15...marched in and took the whole of the Czech state.
37:19Six months after that,
37:21he plunged Europe into the Second World War.
37:24[ Cannons firing ]
37:27The end of the Second World War
37:28triggered the third wave of independence
37:31as people around the world threw off colonial rule.
37:37More than 100 nations would emerge from Europe's empires,
37:41more than 50 from the British Empire alone,
37:43including India, the jewel in the crown.
37:46From the French, more than 20 nations,
37:49and still more from the Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese empires.
37:54In Europe, the tide ran the other way.
37:56Soviet dictator Josef Stalin imprisoned Eastern Europe
38:01behind an iron curtain.
38:07This is the entrance to a nuclear bunker
38:10which was built in the '50s.
38:12Ladislav Winter is an expert on the Soviet era in Prague.
38:16It was designed to take care of up to 5,000 civilians.
38:22The United States was not about to bomb anybody,
38:25so why all of this?
38:27Well, that's what you were told.
38:30Basically, every single day, we were, you know,
38:33brainwashed with the U.S. and NATO, and the Germans
38:36are going to attack us, right?
38:38The bad guys, that's you, bad capitalists, green color.
38:42The good guys are pink.
38:44You are supposed to be grateful for this.
38:46"Look what we do for you, little kids.
38:48We build nuclear bunkers for you so you can survive,
38:51you know, their nuclear attack.
38:53Who is the better society?
38:55Do they have their bunkers?
38:57No, they don't."
38:58Two decades into the Cold War, Czechs longed for freedom.
39:03The Communist Party had an internal struggle,
39:05and the winner, Alexander Dubcek,
39:07the new first secretary, was a surprising one.
39:10He suddenly was a different leader.
39:12In 1968, Dubcek announced
39:14a policy he called communism with a human face,
39:18giving Czechs a fleeting glimpse of freedom,
39:20known as the Prague Spring.
39:22People really endorsed very far-reaching
39:25and widespread reforms.
39:26And this was not what the Communist Party,
39:28in fact, intended in the longer term.
39:31Prague Spring turned to summer crackdown.
39:34On August 20th, 600,000 troops
39:37from other Soviet bloc nations --
39:39Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland --
39:42invaded Czechoslovakia.
39:46Wenceslas Square is really, you know,
39:48the political center of the city.
39:50In 1968, there would be Soviet tanks,
39:53you know, parked all round
39:54and people crawling up the tanks and trying to discuss
39:59the situation with the Soviet soldiers.
40:00But there were posters all around,
40:02there were graffiti on the walls, just saying,
40:05"Go home, Ivan."
40:08The invaders killed more than 100 protesters.
40:11The hopes of the Prague Spring wilted.
40:13This building behind us was used by the Secret Service.
40:17Anybody who had a problem with the Communist regime
40:20was basically taken down here for questioning,
40:23tortured, interrogated.
40:24If you would receive a letter to come down here,
40:27you knew it's not going to be a picnic time.
40:30You personally had such a letter.
40:32I had received a letter to come down here,
40:34but, luckily, I have already had a ticket to Yugoslavia.
40:38I just took the plane and disappeared, yeah.
40:43[ Crowd clapping ]
40:45Two decades later, a political earthquake shakes Europe.
40:48The fall of the Berlin Wall
40:50and the collapse of the Soviet Union
40:54set off the fourth great wave of independence.
40:57The scene is Wenceslas Square.
41:00Now the time is 1989.
41:02You were here then?
41:04Oh, yes, every day.
41:06And it was packed with people.
41:08On the 17th of November, there was a demonstration
41:11at a different place of the city.
41:12Students were brutally beaten by the police.
41:15The special police forces start beating these people up.
41:18A lot of people ended up in hospitals, police stations.
41:21They were loaded up into these police vans,
41:24driven outside of the city.
41:26And these people would come back for more.
41:29My high school was just off that street on the left.
41:32And every day, after typing and copying leaflets,
41:35we would come here for a demonstration.
41:37So, did you participate in the activities?
41:39Of course.
41:40Half of my family was in the jail,
41:42and another half of the family was supporting the regimes.
41:46How many people were killed?
41:48Nobody. Nobody died.
41:50That's why we called this the Velvet Revolution
41:53because nobody died.
41:54On November 20, half a million protesters
41:57thronged into this square.
42:0011 days later,
42:01the communist government resigned.
42:04We were so excited. We are free.
42:06We can travel, and we can do all that we want.
42:08I was afraid of United States, and then the regime changed.
42:11And now I'm afraid of Russia.
42:13We don't know what will happen in the future,
42:16but I hope it will be fine.
42:20With the collapse of the Soviet Union
42:21and the end of the Cold War, 14 countries,
42:2415 if you count Russia, became independent,
42:28including the three Baltic states
42:30and 11 others in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
42:34You know, when one thinks about whether the American Declaration
42:37is somehow still alive at the end of the Communist era,
42:41somehow the democratic ideal came up again
42:44with people who have mostly not lived in democracy
42:47for all of their lives.
42:49Somehow it is with us and in us,
42:51even if we don't have the concepts, the words,
42:55and the democratic practice.
42:58At the dawn of the 20th century,
42:59most of the world was ruled by autocrats.
43:02Today, more than half of all governments are democracies
43:06where the government has the consent of the governed --
43:09a remarkable achievement for liberty
43:12but by no means the end of the story.
43:21Back home, the Declaration was continuing
43:24to shape our democracy.
43:26When I was born, just after World War II,
43:29"Jim Crow" was alive and well.
43:31That was the term for legally enforced segregation
43:34of blacks from whites.
43:36100 years ago, maybe even 50 years ago,
43:38there is a very high likelihood I wouldn't just be walking
43:41and have somebody stop me for an interview,
43:43more specifically, an older white man.
43:46If you're free as a citizen, you can have that freedom
43:49only if you have equality with the other citizens.
43:51So, freedom and equality have always belonged together.
43:54The equality promised in the Declaration
43:57was denied to most black Americans
43:59because of legalized discrimination in housing,
44:02and schooling, employment, and voting.
44:05A decade after the Supreme Court's
44:07landmark decision prohibiting segregation in public schools,
44:11a civil-rights bill to safeguard the liberties
44:13of black Americans languished in the Congress.
44:17To rally support for the bill, black leaders in 1963
44:21organized a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
44:26Organizers expected more than 100,000 people to attend,
44:30but about 250,000 people showed up.
44:33Like millions of Americans, I watched it on TV.
44:36Martin Luther King stood over there
44:38in front of the Lincoln Memorial
44:40and gave a speech that rivals
44:42the Gettysburg Address
44:43in its eloquence.
44:46Like Frederick Douglass a century before
44:49and like the women of Seneca Falls,
44:51Dr. King reminded his fellow Americans
44:54of their shared birthright of
44:56the Declaration of Independence --
44:58life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
45:02a sacred pledge that he likened to a promissory note
45:06long past due.
45:08When Dr. King said it's a promissory note,
45:11eventually, we will get to what the Declaration of Independence
45:14actually should have meant
45:15when the founding fathers said it, right?
45:19Dr. King believed
45:20that America's enduring ability to redeem itself.
45:25He said he dreamt of the time
45:26when his children would be judged
45:28not by the color of their skin
45:30but by the content of their character.
45:33We integrated my high school in 1973.
45:36I was thinking, "'73, one generation from now,
45:40this is truly going to be
45:41a race-neutral kind of environment."
45:44I'm somewhat disappointed in that,
45:46but again, I'm hopeful.
45:48Today, Americans of every color live,
45:51go to school, worship, and work side by side.
45:56America is a far better place than it was when I was born --
45:59more diverse, more tolerant,
46:02not equal, but ever more equal.
46:18For those of us who have always lived in the United States,
46:21we don't know what it would be like to live
46:23without the rule of law.
46:24But a lot of people in this world have never had that.
46:30This may look like China, but it's not.
46:32We're in Chinatown in London.
46:35Terry Leung co-founded Justitia Hong Kong
46:38to help Hongkongers in the U.K.
46:40support each other and their democracy movement.
46:44Terry, does this area remind you of home?
46:47It sort of remind me of home, but at the same time,
46:50it's a little bit complicated.
46:51Hong Kong used to be British colony, but it's not British.
46:54It doesn't only have British culture.
46:56It also have Eastern cultures.
46:58Hong Kong is quite a unique place around the world.
47:01In 1842, after losing the first Opium War,
47:04China ceded Hong Kong to Britain.
47:07In 1898, after losing the second Opium War,
47:10China leased the new territories,
47:12including Hong Kong, to Britain for 99 years.
47:17A British outpost in the early 19th century,
47:20the Port of Hong Kong evolved by the late 20th century
47:24into a global powerhouse of banking and commerce.
47:27In 1997, Britain returned Hong Kong to China.
47:33China agreed to the principle of one country, two systems.
47:36Hong Kong would be recognized as Chinese territory,
47:39but it could remain a capitalist democracy for 50 years.
47:44Didn't quite work out that way.
47:46Would you read this passage here for me?
47:48-Sure.
47:50"That to secure these rights,
47:52governments are instituted among men,
47:55deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
47:59So, before the turnover in 1997,
48:03did that describe Hong Kong?
48:06Well, that was the promise.
48:08[ Chuckles ]
48:10-And -- -China never honored it.
48:12-Right.
48:13Under Chinese dictator Xi Jinping,
48:15democracy in Hong Kong
48:17was all but eliminated.
48:21Simon Cheng is a democracy activist
48:23and founder of Hongkongers in Britain.
48:27While on a business trip in mainland China,
48:29he was detained and tortured by the authorities
48:32before being granted political asylum in the U.K.
48:37We provide mental-health support,
48:39legal and professional referrals,
48:42and sometime encourage them
48:44to set up a new business in the U.K.
48:46You were afraid in Hong Kong.
48:50Are you afraid here?
48:52Yes, absolutely. Not only me
48:54but many other ordinary members of Hongkongers.
48:57They have the fear to join any protest
48:59about Hong Kong in China, even in the U.K.
49:02You ever had the sense that you're being followed?
49:04The law said, you know, they would keep hunting down on us.
49:11So that's why I always feeling I being monitored.
49:22Debra Wong fled Hong Kong with her family.
49:25She wants her children to grow up in a free country.
49:28I was still there in 2019 when the uprising started,
49:33and I was in the first couple of huge demonstrations.
49:39But when the crackdown came,
49:42there was very little the people could do to stop the police,
49:47and pretty soon, we lost the battle.
49:50And after each defeat, obviously,
49:53it shows your enemy the limits of your power.
50:01This painting commemorates the Umbrella Revolution in 2015.
50:08-This is Lumli, Lumlong. -I am Lumlong, yeah.
50:10-We are a couple. -Yeah.
50:12And we are artists from Hong Kong.
50:14Lumli and Lumlong were forced into exile for their art.
50:19We didn't choose to be a political artist.
50:21The government forced us to do so.
50:24Still remember the police had just knocked on the door,
50:27and then he said, "There is a case about you both."
50:31And then I asked him, "What case is it?"
50:33And then he said, "I can't tell you, but I'll be back."
50:37Yeah, just like the Terminator. -Terminator.
50:40So, we were scared.
50:41We decided to flee Hong Kong to the U.K.
50:45We closed our painting studio
50:47and shipped our paintings within 20 days.
50:52It's very important for us to present our paintings online.
50:57It is like a window for us to communicate
51:00with Hong Kong people and our families.
51:03We always work together.
51:05I do the left side, and she do the right side.
51:08And I'm the day shift, and she's the night shift.
51:12I try to find love, and he tries to find justice.
51:18This is about 2019 protest in Hong Kong.
51:20So many people were disappeared,
51:23and most of them were found dead,
51:25falling from the building.
51:26So we believe that they are killed by the police.
51:29We use the puzzle to symbolize that the truth is --
51:34is we don't know the truth.
51:35People think that our paintings are too terrifying.
51:39We always say that the reality is more terrifying than our art.
51:49Up to half a million
51:50Hongkongers are expected to arrive here
51:52on a British national overseas visa --
51:55mostly professionals -- and the vast majority
52:00do not plan to return to Hong Kong.
52:04Terry Leung holds events for Hongkongers to keep in touch
52:08and to keep their culture alive.
52:11Hong Kong is a place where East meets West.
52:13That's what makes Hongkongers' identity.
52:16We hope to preserve our own culture
52:19and integrate it with the British culture.
52:22The question is "What do we need
52:24for another wave of independent movement?"
52:26Now, most of the peoples of the world are independent.
52:30Once U.S. independence was secured,
52:32the significance for us of the Declaration
52:35shifted to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
52:38"Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
52:42These are the values that we want to have.
52:44What too many people lack today is liberty
52:47and a government by the consent of the governed.
52:50I wish one day, Hong Kong will receive
52:54the democracy and freedom that it was promised.
52:57We may see, or we may not see, but we still fight for it.
53:02The color of independence may not be the one
53:03that we understand in history.
53:07The group of people decide to build a kind of nationhood
53:11in understanding rather than geographically.
53:14And we hope the next generation will never forget our past.
53:21For myself, I want to just be able to play the piano.
53:32And I also want to see my children grow up happy.
53:40[ Drumming ]
53:46[ Fife plays ]
53:53Every 4th of July, we celebrate our independence.
53:57But do we appreciate our Declaration of Independence?
54:01I think there's a need for us
54:03to recenter and get grounded again
54:05with what our founding fathers meant us to go by,
54:07and I think the Declaration certainly provides that for us.
54:11And I hope we'll keep passing it on continuously
54:13as a starting point
54:14for how we teach young people about the project of democracy.
54:18Story of democracy is to bring more people in
54:21and to make more people a part of it.
54:23[ Drumming ]
54:30Every day, there's still the same amount of injustice,
54:32so this one day isn't going to change anything.
54:35I'm glad when people can work together.
54:39I think there's room for improvement,
54:41but I think we'll get there.
54:43I'm, like, hopeful.
54:44Like, I feel like -- like our generation,
54:47and next generations,
54:48will at least try to make the world a better place.
54:51I think what probably is the most important is that
54:53we teach the next generation how to learn from our mistakes.
55:02I think we've come a long way just in my lifetime.
55:04I can't wait to see how far we go in the lifetime
55:08of my children that are here next to me.
55:09You do have people of color and Indigenous and Latin Americans
55:14and Asian-Americans in high-visibility positions.
55:17And I'm proud of where I came from,
55:19but I'm more proud where I am today.
55:21I think it's our responsibility, um, as citizens,
55:24to apply pressure to our lawmakers.
55:26July 4th does symbolize that commitment to self-government,
55:29to being free and equal citizens,
55:31gives us a holiday that really is for everybody.
55:34I'm still hopeful that we'll get to that utopian idea
55:39that our founding fathers had in mind.
55:42We've come a long way since 1776,
55:45but the quest for liberty and equality
55:48and the pursuit of happiness never end.
55:51The words of our Declaration can unite us
55:54and light the way as we go forward.
55:58[ Fireworks exploding, crowds cheering ]
56:28Major funding for this program was provided by...
56:35Additional funding was provided by...

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