New York City, 1917. Americans get their music from player pianos. Plastic was just barely invented. And only about 25% of teenagers actually went to high school. But in a packed courtroom, a woman named Emma Goldman is on trial. We talk with a law professor who tells the story of 20th-century free speech, starting with Goldman. And we round out the series with a conversation about teaching dissent in schools.
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Episode 4: Dissent in the Founding Era
The U.S. Constitution is the oldest written constitution still in use today. A single document that lays out a framework for how our country is governed, the Constitution is fairly simple, short, and flexible. But when it was proposed, it was considered a radical design for a government. We talk with a historian about the dissent that nearly prevented ratification of this new constitution in 1788.
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Episode 3: Heroes of American Dissent
A law professor shares a list of people—some well known, some not—whom he credits with seeing America for what it could be and then working toward making it so.
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Episode 2: Making the Decision to Fight
We talk with one of six people suing the Trump administration for rescinding DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), a program that allows people who came to the U.S. as undocumented children to receive a renewable work permit. And we take a field trip to a former high school in smalltown Virginia where students as young as 12 years old helped start the movement for integration of public schools.
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Episode 1: The Right to Dissent
Influenced by Colin Kaepernick’s protest of police brutality during the National Anthem, a high school volleyball player initiates her own protest, and not without consequences. And a historian tells the story of a religious minority who helped win the American Revolution and the fight for religious freedom in America.
South Africa