Filmmaker Ken Burns at Collegiate: Race a central subtheme in US history

By Brandon Shulleeta (original source Richmond Times Dispatch)

“Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns revealed to a group of high school students in Henrico County on Thursday what he considers the second most powerful sentence in the English language: the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence.

Burns noted that the sentence begins: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

However, that sentence written in 1776 is entrenched with hypocrisy, considering its author was a slaveholder, Burns said. And in reflecting on his highly esteemed American history documentaries, Burns said the matter of race in America has continuously surfaced.”

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