Live at the National Constitution Center

What the Black Intellectual Tradition Can Teach Us About Democracy

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New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie and political scientist Melvin Rogers, author of The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought, explore the ways key African American intellectuals and artists—from David Walker, Frederick Douglass, and W.E.B. Du Bois to Billie Holiday and James Baldwin—reimagined U.S. democracy. Thomas Donnelly, chief content officer at the National Constitution Center, moderates.


Additional Resources


  • Melvin Rogers, The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought
  • Melvin Rogers, The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the Ethos of Democracy
  • Kate Masur, Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction
  • Jamelle Bouie, “How Black Political Thought Shapes My Work”, New York Times
  • David Walker
  • David Walker, Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829)
  • Jamelle Bouie, “Why I Keep Coming Back to Reconstruction”, New York Times
  • Martin Delany
  • Jamelle Bouie, “What Frederick Douglass Knew that Trump and DeSantis Don’t”, New York Times
  • Jamelle Bouie, “The Deadly History of ‘They’re Raping Our Women'”, Slate
  • W.E.B. Dubois, The Souls of Black Folk


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