Transcript Unit Introduction - Teaching American History

“All men are created equal”
The history of the most important phrase of the last 1000
years
Who wrote these words?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their creator with certain
inalienable rights, that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
Who wrote these words?
“It appears to me that that in memory they
(blacks) are equal to whites; in reason
much inferior, as I think one could scarcely
be found capable of tracing and
comprehending the investigations of
Euclid; and that in imagination they are
dull, tasteless, and anomalous…I advance
that blacks…are inferior to whites in the
endowment both of body and of mind.”
William Massey, PhD.
• Princeton
Mathematician
• Research Interests:
– Queueing Systems with
Time-Varying Rates
– Asymptotic Analysis and
Stochastic Bounds for
Stochastic Networks
• Fields medal candidate
Sean Combs
• aka, Puff Daddy,
Pdiddy, Puffy, etc.
• Rapper, producer,
actor, business man,
director
• Over 50 million
records sold as artist
or producer
• Multi-millionaire
Lebron James
What is race?
• Historically: skin color and other visible
characteristics were associated with
character, intelligence, and other internal
characteristics
• Scientifically: more difficult. Genetics plays
a role in skin color and other attributes, but
there is no gene or set of genes which
determines race.
– There is more variability within groups than
between groups
What is race?
• Race is now seen as a social or cultural
idea. That is to say, what it means to be
“black” or “white” is determined by a
variety of factors including political and
economic power, media images, fashion,
and history.
• What it means to be “black” or “white” is
different from place to place and changes
over time
What is gender?
• Like race, gender is constructed
• Male and female are biological terms,
relating to reproductive roles
• Masculine and feminine are sociological,
and are determined by cultural values
“Sugar and spice and everything nice”
Virginia Declaration of Rights
(1776)
“All men are by nature equally free and
independent, and have certain inherent
rights, of which, when they enter into a
state of society, they cannot, by any
compact, deprive or divest their posterity;
namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty,
with the means of acquiring and
possessing property, and pursuing and
obtaining happiness and safety”
US Constitution, 14th Amendment
(1868)
“…nor shall any State deprive any person
of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor to deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection
of the laws”
“I have a dream”
Martin Luther King -- 1963
“I have a dream that one day this nation
will rise up and live out the true meaning of
its creed: "We hold these truths to be selfevident: that all men are created equal."
“I have a dream that my four children will
one day live in a nation where they will not
be judged by the color of their skin but by
the content of their character.”