What does a country sing about when it can't agree on its own founding? Why has Hollywood, which will film literally anything, never made a great movie about 1776? And when both the Black Lives Matter marchers and the January 6th rioters claim to be the true heirs of the Declaration of Independence, who actually owns the revolution?

From Hamilton's founding hustlers to Beyoncé's cowboys to a White House captioning a royal portrait "two kings," Peter and Afua track the Declaration through the culture that keeps remixing it — and a country that still can't agree on what it says.

[0:00] Two riots, one document, and everyone insisting they're the real sons of liberty

[3:10] How a hip-hop musical about a slaveholding revolution became the biggest thing on Broadway

[7:49] The friend Afua had to physically stop from walking out of Hamilton

[12:27] An empty thousand-seat cinema, and the one Melania line worth hearing

[16:00] The first American cowboys came from West Africa — and Beyoncé knows it

[19:14] Why Hollywood will green-light anything except 1776

[23:36] The protest movement that refuses to say Trump's name

[32:13] The day the White House posted a photo and called it "two kings"

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Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:

Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com

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Why did African Americans spend a century celebrating the Fifth of July instead of the Fourth? Why did a sitting US president personally try to end a journalist's career over one newspaper series? And two hundred and fifty years on, why can't America agree on what its founding document actually means?

A 250-year-old promise of equality collides with slavery, revolution and a modern-day tenure battle as Afua and Peter close out their Declaration of Independence series.

[1:28] Fifty-six men sign in Philadelphia — many of them slave owners writing "all men are created equal"

[8:07] Lafayette's regret: "I would never have drawn my sword..."

[11:42] Why a Virginia senator can't stomach Bolívar's revolution

[15:20] Why Black Americans spent a century celebrating the Fifth of July instead

[17:27] Frederick Douglass asks the question that still stings: "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?"

[18:53] The project that says America was really founded in 1619

[28:55] A sitting president personally tries to take the story down

[30:54] She wins a Pulitzer. Her university refuses her tenure anyway.

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Stay connected with Legacy:

Instagram: @originallegacypodcast

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Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:

Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com

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Stay connected with Legacy:

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Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com

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Who really built American freedom — and why does the answer make so many people so uncomfortable? What happens when an enslaved woman takes the Declaration of Independence more seriously than the man who wrote it? And, when the President of the United States turns the full machinery of government against one young Black woman — why can't he catch her?

Belinda Sutton petitioned a court for fifty years of unpaid wages and won. Ona Judge walked out of the President's house while George Washington ate his dinner, and spent the rest of her life free. The founding story you were taught left both of them out entirely.

[0:00] The founding myth and its glaring blind spot

[3:00] Belinda Sutton — kidnapped at 12, enslaved for 50 years, and why she still fought back

[7:50] The petition that became one of the earliest demands for reparations in American history

[12:00] John Hancock signs off — and why the estate still refuses to pay

[17:00] How Belinda's story spread and why Ta-Nehisi Coates and Harvard both came calling

[19:30] Ona Judge — Washington's secret system for keeping his household enslaved in Pennsylvania

[24:00] The night she walked out while the President ate dinner

[27:30] Washington weaponises the federal government to hunt her down

[31:00] She negotiates with the President — and he blinks first

[34:00] "I am free" — Ona Judge's answer, fifty years later, says everything

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Stay connected with Legacy:

Instagram: @originallegacypodcast

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Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:

Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com

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Stay connected with Legacy:

Instagram: @originallegacypodcast

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Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.