12:00: "The Declaration Does Not Apply"
1:00: "Broad Stripes, Bright Stars, and White Lies: America's First Flag"
We bring you special programming for the Fourth of July holiday.
First, the founders left three groups out of the Declaration of Independence: Black Americans; Indigenous peoples; and women. This is how they responded. A few years ago, "Civics 101," New Hampshire Public Radio's podcast about the basics of how our democracy works, did a series revisiting the Declaration of Independence, and three groups for which the tenants of life, liberty, and property enshrined in that document did not apply. We bring you all three parts of that series.
Part 1: Byron Williams, author of The Radical Declaration, walks us through how enslaved Americans and Black Americans pushed against the document from the very beginning of our nation’s founding.
Part 2: Writer and activist Mark Charles lays out the anti-Native American sentiments within it, the doctrines and proclamations from before 1776 that justified "discovery," and the Supreme Court decisions that continue to cite them all.
Part 3: Laura Free, host of the podcast "Amended" and professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, tells us about the Declaration of Sentiments, the document at the heart of the women’s suffrage movement.
Then in the second hour, Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag. At least, that's what we were taught in school. But when historians go searching…there’s no proof to be found. So how did this story get started? In this special hour-long episode of the Smithsonian's "Sidedoor" podcast, we unravel the Revolutionary history behind this vexillological tall tale. In the process, we learn that the real Betsy Ross was anything but the mild-mannered seamstress we think we know. And we discover the work of the women behind another of America's most famous flags: the Star Spangled Banner.
"Sidedoor" is a production of the Smithsonian Institution. More than 155 million treasures fill the Smithsonian’s vaults, but where public view ends, "Sidedoor" begins. With the help of biologists, artists, historians, archaeologists, zookeepers, and astrophysicists, host Lizzie Peabody sneaks listeners through Smithsonian’s side door to search for stories that can’t be found anywhere else.
