 Hello and welcome. I'm Martha Jones from Johns Hopkins University, and I'm thrilled to be hosting this conversation today at the National Archives and Record Administration. I want to welcome our special guest, Professor Matt Clavin from the University of Houston. We're here to talk today about his brand new book out on Monday, the symbols of freedom, slavery and resistance before the Civil War with NYU Press. Professor Clavin is a prolific historian. This is his fourth book, a specialist of the history of slavery in the Atlantic world and emancipation. And I'm really thrilled to be here with you today, Matt. Welcome to the National Archives. Well, thank you, and thank you to the National Archives. I'm very honored to be here and especially honored to have you available to have this discussion. So I'm very appreciative. Thank you. Sure. Well, it's always a treat, isn't it, to get a preview of a book before it hits the stands, as we used to say. And this one is especially aptly timed to coincide on Monday with Juneteenth, our national holiday, and then just around the corner of the Fourth of July. And I know we're going to talk about both of those occasions and how they fit with this book. But first, let me just say thank you for symbols of freedom. And I thought I'd just start by asking you if I could to take a few minutes to set up our conversation and introduce the book. I have lots of questions. I'm going to encourage folks to post their own. But maybe you could set up the conversation for us. Thank you. This book is years in the making. Probably 20 years ago I came across while I was in graduate school when I was in Washington, D.C. I'm a Baltimore native. And so I was always very interested in Maryland, D.C., Baltimore history still in. And as I was in grad school, I was already writing my dissertation on one topic. And just in the archives, as we often do, we stumble upon things. And I came across this account of dozens of enslaved men from Southern Maryland who decided to make a break for slavery and to get to Pennsylvania and freedom. They had to get through the nation's capital. They didn't make it. Most of them did not make it. They were eventually stopped near Rockville, Maryland. There's a big gun fight. Several are killed. Most are re-enslaved. Some are sold to the Deep South. Two or three actually made it to freedom, which is pretty incredible. But what really was shocking to me is this happened over fourth of July weekend. And when you, you know, unfortunately, and I've done the research, we don't have any of the words and the voices of those enslaved people, those fugitive slaves. We have no documentation of their motivations. All we know is that over that weekend they escaped. And I was fascinated by that. And what was also fascinated by war was that all the Southern accounts of this very, it becomes known as a fugitive slave rebellion, so it's fugitive slaves who are armed and they eventually fight their potential oppressors. But what was interesting, all the Southern accounts, white Southern accounts, did not mention that coincidence of them escaping over fourth of July weekend. Whereas abolitionists, they took the ball and ran with it. And they have one famous writer and William Lloyd Garrison's liberator. He referred to these fugitive slaves as the disciples of the declaration because he assumed they must have heard the declaration over fourth of July weekend and took off. And so I was very fascinated by the different receptions. And then ever since then I've just scoured newspapers, pamphlets, correspondence, and have been just shocked. And then after a while I'm not shocked anymore. How many slave escapes, how many revolt attempts, how many slave plots, how many slave suicides. I mean, anything you can imagine, they occur on fourth of July or fourth of July weekend. And then this became a much bigger project. Clearly these enslaved people understood the fourth of July. They understood the rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence. It's an idea that all men are created equal. And I found that it wasn't just the fourth of July. It's the American flag. It's the US Capitol building. It's the rhetoric of the revolution like Patrick Henry's great quotation, give me liberty or give me death. And I have found countless examples of enslaved people literally fighting through the death and they exclaim, give me liberty or give me death. And these are enslaved people in Virginia and Louisiana in the 1800s. And so that's really the root of the whole project. And as it became a book project and as I started writing it, this really speaks to our conception of not just patriotism, but nationalism. And that's a very heavy term today. And I do get into those ideas and these large historical philosophical even issues, but at the root of it is slave resistance and also the abolition movement. And these people enslaved and their free allies, they are demanding before the civil war that the United States stop being so hypocritical, stop talking about freedom and equality and let's realize it. And so that's that I'm so inspired by the story of these people that I had to write the book. And I'm just really happy I've had the opportunity to do just that. Well, you're already, I think, giving us a sense of how gripping some of these stories are including that of the Rockville rebels out of Maryland that you feature in here. But I want to ask you if I could to spend a little time with you on this and how you use the concept of nationalism. Because when I encountered the word and the idea here in this book, I couldn't help here. If you will kind of 21st century right 2023, where the term nationalism is fraught in many contexts, we would even say I think pejorative, but you really want to I think if I could put it this way, you want to rescue the term and restore it historically and put it in the minds in the hands in the thinking in the actions of anti-slavery activists, but also enslaved people themselves. Tell us a little bit more about why we want to hold on to the idea of nationalism even here in 2023. And I think early on in the project, I looked up the word nationalism in Webster's 1820s dictionary, and it's not in there. Patriotism is in there. So that's how new the term was. That's how new the whole idea of a nation state was early 19th century. And so whereas today we have 200 years of history and a lot of it ugly. World War I, World War II. And I could go on and it's really not me. I'm borrowing from a lot of other historians of recent years, but also not so recent. And they have made this argument, you know, Jill LePore comes to mind that we may not appreciate and like the look and feel and smell of nationalism today for obvious reasons. But it's still number one, it's a powerful historical force. And we can't ignore it. We have to reckon with it. But then there's also this idea in the literature that, you know, when it comes to the war, nationalism meant different things. But I think just in general, the way I see it is. Patriotism is love of country. Period. Whereas nationalism is more love of country. And either a feeling of superiority to other peoples, or maybe just a dislike or disdain for other people rooted in sort of that self pride. Today we call it American exceptionalism. And I find in the early 19th century that the word and again, I'm borrowing this from another smarter person is this idea of aspirationalism. And so it's sort of this idea, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, so many other leaders at the time, they feel that the United States has incredible potential. And I think they would argue it has way more potential than any other nation on earth because of the declaration's proclamation of equality, you know, because of the idea of freedom and equality. So the United States is born in blood, it's born in revolution, but it's also born in freedom. And clearly before the Civil War, freedom does not belong to everybody. But I think in the minds of a lot of these enslaved people, these escaped slaves who become abolitionists, abolitionist leaders, and we're talking black and white, male and female rich and poor, they in their heart of hearts really do believe that the United States has exceptional potential. And so they have a real love of country, but it's not critical. It's not, you know, it's not, what's the word? Help me out, Martha, when you love somebody, no matter what they do to you or no matter what you do to them, it's not unrequited love. It's called unconditional love. Yeah, it's like there are conditions. And the condition is, keep rid of slavery, spread quality and freedom. You know, on the 4th of July, I think the Americans are critical because they're not. And so I think what is inspirational is the word, but probably what is inspirational to me is that these people who are, you know, they're just, their whole lives revolve around opposition to the institution of slavery. Yet they find in America's core, an exceptional ideology that they embrace. And, you know, we've seen this throughout American history, how frequently and in great numbers, African Americans will enlist in the military, they will die for the flag, despite being treated so poorly at home. And, you know, just one of the paradoxes of American history, the black role, the role of black people in the U.S. military, it's still underappreciated. And this is kind of related to that. Here's a love of country, but it's conditional. And until you get rid of slavery, you know, we'll love them. And you hear Douglas and Garrison and so many others, they sometimes exclaim, they don't love America. Or William Lloyd Garrison's great motto is, my country is the world. But on other occasions, you hear them very explicitly saying, they love America, this is their country, they're not leaving, they're going to fix it. So it really is an incredible story that absolutely, I think needs to be told and understood by the public today. I think it will help us understand some of the issues we're dealing with today. And it will help us, I think, with a puzzle that you, I want to get to Douglas, but I first want to ask you about many, many of the lesser known, unnamed enslaved people who really animate this book. There's a puzzle, I think, for us about how it is that folks are so ill-regarded by the state, by the Constitution, by American courts and more, still develop this sense of nationalism, as you describe it, conditional perhaps, but a powerful sense of nationalism. Help us understand that a little bit better. Maybe an example that from the book would help us to appreciate that really complex and almost puzzling equation. Yeah, and I think what I have found is, there's a literature on this, but before the Civil War and the Southern slave states, the meaning of the Fourth of July changes, where it was originally intended to celebrate, obviously, American independence, but at the same time, the ideology that all men are created equal, the language of the Declaration, and it becomes very concrete over the years how white Southerners, they start to intentionally, explicitly, alter the meaning of the Fourth, to just become a party, barbecues, foot races, anything you can imagine that's apolitical. And they really try to depoliticize the holiday because they understand how subversive those ideas are in a slave society like the antebellum South. So at the same time, and there's discussions of how can we keep black people away from the Fourth of July. There are recommendations that this should be a whites-only event, you know, keep the slaves at home. It doesn't happen. In many parts of the South, blacks are in the majority. So I have found just multiple examples of enslaved people who are participating in Fourth of July celebrations. They are in an audience listening to politicians, great orators, you know, re-read the Declaration of Independence. They hear discussions of the Fourth of July, all these political ideas. So even if you are illiterate, if you are, if you can access a Fourth of July celebration in which they recite the great American idea that all men are created equal, that's going to have a powerful impact. So again, from Louisiana to Baltimore, you know, far west to Kentucky and Tennessee, enslaved people are fully aware of these ideals and the United States' shortcomings. And William Wells Brown is the best example, although there's many. William Wells Brown is enslaved in, you know, sort of Kentucky and Missouri. He's in St. Louis as a teenager. And at one point he hears a U.S. senator read the Declaration of Independence and give this great oration on the Fourth of July. And later on, his daughter writes a biography of her father and she quotes him as saying, from the day I heard that oration, I was going to become free. And he really does try for a couple of years and eventually he makes his way to freedom. And so white Southerners, they didn't do a very good job of keeping these ideas from percolating across the antebellum sound. And one thing I've learned in my decades now of research and teaching, you know, enslaved peoples in the United States for certain is as isolated as they may have been geographically, they were still connected. You know, they got word of things from the Caribbean. They heard about things in Europe. They knew the British were coming during the war of 1812 before they came, you know, things of that nature. And so these, and I've written books, I've written articles about how so many of these global ideas, global revolutions, the information trickled down to enslaved Americans. And I think, and I even wonder looking back, did on occasion, I forget that there were also these revolutionary ideas at home that also percolated and spread across the South. So I don't think of this book as an intellectual history, but it is a book about ideas. And, you know, you can interpret, and I use the terms rhetorical nationalism, and then there's the term revolutionary nationalism. And so you can go to the Fourth of July celebration, you can read the declaration and ignore it and go back home and continue practicing inequality and bigotry and all these things. Or you can like the people I study, the enslaved people, their allies, they are taking the declaration literal. More importantly maybe arguably, they're taking Patrick Henry at his word. And when he says, give me liberty or give me death, that's not rhetoric. You know, that's not a joke. That's not nothing to be scoffed at. He's being literal. And like I said, I found enough evidence to show that there are a lot of, of enslaved people and they are willing to die for liberty. And there's nothing more American than that. You know, you really show us, I think how enslaved people, as I think of it are really breathing meaning, right? Into that text, right? And viewing it with meaning, with their own ideas, with their own interpretations, with their own actions oftentimes in the story that you tell. But let me ask you about a moment. And I want to, because I want to come to Douglas. I think some readers will have encountered Douglas is what to the slave is the Fourth of July. And if they hadn't, that is reason alone, your wonderful chapter on that speech and its significance, that alone is, is, is worth picking up this book. But what I didn't know was how prior to that, as Douglas came back from Britain, now fully fledged as an anti-slavery or an anti-slavery orator and activist, he was branded a traitor. He was someone who for a time was regarded as un-American. I think today we think of Douglas as sort of the quintessential American, certainly the quintessential 19th century American. What was going on there that led people's minds to change about Douglas? Oh boy, I could talk for hours and thank you for your kind words about the chapter. Anytime you write about Douglas, it's intimidating because so much has been said and written about Douglas. And I definitely stand on the shoulders of really incredible thinkers and writers who have said a lot about Douglas. But two things I'll point out before I get to this third thing to answer a question. Douglas loved America. And his name originally from his mother, his birth name was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. And three of those names we know the origins, we don't know where Washington came from. And I like David Blight, one of Douglas, certainly Douglas's most prolific biographer, think that this has something to do clearly with George Washington. Washington is the most popular African American surname. It still is. So they're right there. So from his birth, there's a connection to him and a founding father. Another great story most people know about when Douglas escaped and ultimately freeze himself from slavery. He's in Baltimore and he dresses as a sailor. And a lot of free black men worked on the waterfront and on the water at this time. So he had a friend who was a sailor and he borrowed his sailor's outfit. And a lot of times you didn't look like a runaway when you look like a sailor. But most importantly, he had a certificate, a seaman's protection certificate. It was called as an early sort of passport idea, if you will, to protect American sailors from being harassed and impressed abroad. But what's really neat about this whole story, and at the National Archives they have, I've seen them, some of these seaman protection certificates, and they're the coolest documents to look at. And it will describe the sailor, the color of his skin, the color of his eyes. But what is really cool is this American eagle that is imprinted on top of the document. And sometimes it's a little tiny eagle. Sometimes it's a third of the certificate is this American eagle. And when Douglas is riding a railroad car through Baltimore, he's, you know, conductor comes by, asks for his, I guess, ticket and his identification. And Douglas shows him this passport, or this protection certificate. And almost with an attitude, I would say, he says to the guy, something like, I have a paper with the American eagle on it. I can go anywhere I want. And it's him sort of saying like, this eagle really represents something. This document clearly does. But in his mind, America, its symbol is this bird and it represents freedom. And when he gets possession of that, he's a free man. So, so I think from the beginning, Douglas just has this affinity for the United States. And again, it's, it's conditional. He'll be as critical as any American of the United States's, you know, laws and its policies regarding black people and equality. But to answer your question by the 1850s, he does a switch. He pretty much turns his back intellectually on all of his abolitionist mentors, garrison at the forefront. He becomes a champion of the U.S. Constitution. And so prior to him making the switch, most leading abolitionists, they sort of did not appreciate the Constitution. They were very critical of it because the Constitution is, in fact, a pro-slavery document. It's sanctioned slavery. It sanctions the slave trade for at least 20 years. It does all these things. You know, troops can be used to put down slave insurrections. So what most abolitionists would celebrate and talk about and champion and promote was the declaration. They said, that was our founding document. The Constitution is a pro-slavery text. I mean, it infuriated them. But Douglas finds in the Constitution pro-slavery, I'm sorry, anti-slavery tendencies. Doesn't use the word slavery. Because the founding fathers didn't want to, you know, make it concrete permanent. Doesn't use the word Negro or African-American or any reference to a slave like that. It's legal jargon. It does refer to enslaved people as persons. And for Douglas, that is the biggest thing. And so as by the 1850s, he starts to argue that the Constitution, although flawed, can be read as an anti-slavery text. And so when he is invited by a group of women in Rochester, an anti-slavery sewing club, they invite him to sort of give this 4th of July oration to announce publicly or to explain to all of his newfound critics why he's changed his opinion on the Constitution. And if there's anything I love about Douglas, and I just love people in general, like Iconoclast, and he's willing to challenge his best friends, his mentors, if he believes the opposite. Like he backs down from nobody. He will challenge President Lincoln during the Civil War. You know, he challenges garrison. He challenged his slave owners and overseers. I mean, he's just a defiant man, but not for defiant sakes. I mean, he's a freedom fighter. He's an American, true and true. And so he earns a lot of disdain from a lot of respected anti-slavery folks. And so that 4th of July oration, which he gives on the 5th of July on a Monday, is really his opportunity to explain why he now sees the Constitution as an anti-slavery text. So you mentioned the 5th of July, and I'm going to take that as an opportunity to ask you about that day, because we expect, I think, to you to tell us a story about the 4th of July, a day that we still mark as a national holiday in ways that are substantive and perhaps nationalistic in a sense. And on the other hand, that are those other traditions about barbecue and three-legged races and things like that. But here, I think readers will be surprised, I think, to encounter the importance of, say, the 5th of July or August 1st. And so what of these other dates? How do they surface on the calendar in anti-Belma America? And what do they tell us about this struggle over the meaning of freedom? And I think some readers will be very surprised to find out. And as historians, sometimes we have to sort of summarize and almost generalize and oversimplify. And so there's definitely the time, the era that I'm talking about, the 30, 40, the decade between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. It's an era of supranationalism. But slavery disappears from the north and it only grows in the south. But you'd be mistaken if you don't appreciate that racism is national. So there's slavery and white supremacy in the south. In the north, there's no slavery, but there's plenty of white supremacy. And one of the darker chapters of American history is throughout this anti-Belma era, the 4th of July is a very dangerous day for black people in the northern United States from the east coast to the Midwest. I mean, you would think this would be a day of all days for black people to feel that maybe they can enjoy citizenship. And no, this is complete opposite. As you can imagine, white supremacists, some of these people are immigrants, some are native-born Americans, some are probably good people and they get drunk on the 4th of July. And then it's a mob mentality and they attack black neighborhoods, they attack black churches. There are innocent black people just celebrating the 4th of July, sometimes inside of a church for goodness sakes. And a white mob, a raging mob, violent mob will break into the church, break into the theater, break into the home and attack, beat, and in some cases kill people. And so as you can imagine, for free black northerners or their white allies, this is a sickening turn of events. And then, so you would imagine Philadelphia where there's a huge riot, New York, there's multiple riots. Who wants to acknowledge, you know, the greatness of America the next 4th of July? And the answer is not a lot of these people. And so what they sort of do is, and this happens early in the 19th century, is they start to find alternative days to celebrate American independence and the idea of equality. Just not the 4th of July. So a lot of people, they will do the 5th of July in many cases. A lot of free black northerners sort of like this. It's like the next day, they will take to the streets in New York City and Boston and Philadelphia and really make an assertive show of their, you know, their collective strength or solidarity. They're Americans, but this is a new protest tradition. But without a doubt, across the north for black and white northerners, August 1st really does become the preferred day for a holiday summer celebration. And August 1st in the 1830s, Britain does away with slavery in its colonies in the Caribbean and the West Indies. And I always in many historians have found this so fascinating how free black Americans, they really come to appreciate and love Britain at this time. You know, fugitive slaves, people working the Underground Railroad, the goal is to get escaped people to Canada, which by the 1830s no longer has slavery. You know, something after the 1820s, get them to Mexico, get them to another country, another colony, another part of the world that doesn't have slavery. And these people that I study, despite their great affinity for the United States is founding ideals. They still oftentimes will say explicitly their actions show that they also have love for other nations, if they embrace freedom, if they embrace abolition, if they embrace emancipation. So I found and not just in, you know, in the antebellum era, but people have multiple identities at the same time. You can be a Northerner proudly, and you can also be a proud American. You know, you can be a Philadelphia Eagles football fan and love the Boston Red Sox. Doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I've seen it. So you know, I think these people have multiple identities, and anything that promotes the end of slavery, they have an affinity for, be it Britain, be it, you know, Spain, be it the Netherlands, France, it doesn't matter. And when in the Civil War, the United States government finally comes around embracing emancipation, then they're full throttle behind the United States of America. Finally, we're getting rid of the great cancer that has, you know, dogged us since the 18th century. And on this point, I think, I think you see things differently when it comes, for example, to August 1st celebrations. I think some historians have regarded that as evidence of a black nationalist or a pan-African political worldview. And your answer is no. Say just a little bit more about that. David Walker comes to mind. And I have written before, you know, he loved Haiti, you know, he just, he just loved the Haitian Republic. What Haiti represented. And for the listeners who may not know, you know, Haiti is the result of the largest, most successful slave revolt in world history, beginning in the 1790s, you know, during the French Revolution. Santo Domingo is a French colony. Hundreds of thousands of slaves rise up rebel and eventually they establish an independent black republic. It's the second independent nation in the western hemisphere beyond the United States. So David Walker is a free black northerner who was a writer and anti-slavery advocate, early abolitionist, and he writes a very radical pamphlet in 1829, 1828, 1829 called David Walker's appeal, in which he just lays out sort of this philosophy of revolution and how, you know, he justifies violent upheaval. He encourages violent upheaval, anything to get rid of slavery. So Haiti holds a special place in his heart. Like he just loves what those enslaved people were able to do against all odds. And I would never say he doesn't identify with those people. He does as a black American. He identifies himself with these black Haitians. They're black people. It's very important to him. But I think what I have found that other historians have overlooked is that if you read his pamphlet, he keeps citing the declaration and he keeps talking about America's founding fathers. He keeps talking about the founding generation. And he's talking about the white founders, actually. So I would say, you know, to get back to my previous point, he is both a black man and he's an American. So I would say, you know, Walker is all of his, you know, biographers that say he's a black nationalist, but I would add to that. He's also a United States nationalist. And I think that's sort of the new, my way of looking at it, which is kind of innovative and original. And it's not to take away from his black nationalism, but it's to say he can be more than one thing at the same time. And I guess I think I hear important echoes there of, of course, the great W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. W. So let me, let me take us away a bit from the symbol that is the fourth of July To some others of the symbols that also animate this book and I want to especially ask you about the American flag. Last year I had an opportunity for the Philadelphia Enquirer, and to get their guest editor Aaron Haynes to write an essay reflecting on the meaning of the American flag for back Americans. And of course it's an extraordinary saga as you really help us appreciate that has powerful roots in the anti-bound period. But let me ask you about something adjacent to that before I come back to the flag and I want to come back to that scene that you introduced the book with at the US Capitol in the wake of the War of 1812. But before that I wanted to ask you about companion symbols that again I think we may have forgotten about Liberty poles and Liberty caps. What are those and why are those in your book companions to the flag as folks in a sense make manifest their ideas about the nation about freedom and Liberty belonging and more. Well the Liberty cap specifically dates back to the Roman Republic and I was teaching a class recently and I stopped and show images and I show how in the early American period Liberty is always portrayed or typically portrayed as a woman, Lady Liberty and we get 100 years later the Statue of Liberty. There are Americans in general and at least the educated portion of the population who studied ancient Greek and Roman, I mean these symbols were very familiar to them, it wouldn't be familiar to us today. And so there's an incident I find I found in Savannah, Georgia, in the early 1800s, and a US soldier who had fought in the war of 1812 he was from the north, and he ended up moving to the south after the war. He had a big commotion one morning I guess he didn't realize the Fourth of July stumbles out of bed. He gets dressed and he goes to the town square. And as part of this tradition in Savannah, Georgia, they erect this big Liberty pole and that there's a big tradition in the American Revolution to have this huge Liberty tree or Liberty pole, very symbolic it just it's a focal point a place to organize and to gather for resistance, or to just to celebrate for great speech, a reading of the American Revolution. And so these symbols, even if they're ancient anything that represents freedom, they're basically appropriating them and trying to make them or they see them as American symbols you know the United States in their minds is the great inheritor of the ancient idea of freedom or political freedom. So back to Savannah Georgia, this war veteran he goes and I'm sure he's anti slavery he goes to this rally, if you will, and people are yelling and screaming cheering, you know, guns are being shot because the big tradition of the Liberty pole is being lifted and some of these poles are heavy they're 5060 feet tall. There's usually a Liberty cap on top. And all of a sudden this veteran realizes that the only people being used to lift this pole, and to put it in a place are enslaved Americans, black people. And he's just, you know, he's disgusted by this. So everyone else is celebrating this this party, this this, you know, acknowledgement of American freedom at the same time enslaved people are working to lift this pole. And so he makes sort of this comment under his breath like you know this is kind of crazy. And someone standing next to him says listen, you know, sir, you better be careful how you say things like that around here. But this day I don't know if it was an actual friend who said that it was just sort of nudging him, or if it was a complete stranger who said hey listen guy, we don't talk like that here. But boy that is a stark reminder of how different this country was hundreds of years ago. You know, enslaved people in Georgia, being forced to lift this Liberty pole and so the word I use constantly thought the book is just a mockery it's a mockery of freedom. It's not. And it's bad enough to have a Liberty pole in a city rooted in African American slavery, but to force enslaved people to lift that pole, you know, equally disturbing are these slave coffals that are forced to march across the south. They have 2030 40 enslaved people men women children, infants chain together oftentimes, and you know someone at the front is forced to carry an American flag. And so it's bad enough to have slavery in a nation rooted in freedom at least nominally, but it's really I find like these white southerners because slavery has become controversial it's become sectional, you know, even internationally it's become a problem. I think they really take joy, if you will, or pleasure and sort of using these symbols and mocking them. And again, certainly they would say we believe in Liberty for white Americans we believe in freedom for white Americans, but for the black population. This Liberty cap is a joke, you know this this this flag that represents white people not black people. And so what I do find is abolitionist then they fight to reappropriate those symbols through their speeches their writings a lot of the images that they produce the posters the handbills, they use the flag they use the US Capitol building they use the Liberty cap, usually they use the Liberty pole and they try to bring that symbol back to what they argue what I believe it was intended to represent, which was actual equality for all people, not just white Americans. You're in the book and in this explanation. You really affirm, you know, partly where I landed in trying to write about the flag over time, which is that it's very difficult to hold stable or to render the meaning of the flag. It's a sustained way over time that it is a lightning rod, if you will, for controversy, but I think for us as historians the place to look for understanding about the conflicts that are roiling through cities. Like Savannah, like Washington DC and more, and you open the book with this extraordinary example of the slave coffle in the nation's capital in the wake of the war of 1812 in front of what is, I guess really the shell of the capital. And we discover through your rendering how they are 200 plus years ago. The flag is a controversial symbol being appropriated and reappropriated, struggled over in real time in early America. And I can't help but think. And I know you invite us to think in this way about how, in our own time, in our own moment, we have seen some version of a replay of that very contest. I'm not going to draw you too much in the present but I, I do think that because this is where you begin the book. You want us to, I think use this history to some degree, as a useful lens on the present. Am I right for sure and I have special affinity for the US capital I lived in Washington DC for multiple years I lived on East Capital and I used to jog up the steps of the US capital you can't do that anymore, but this was in pre and post 911. And so I really did it's a beautiful building the whole downtown areas incredible. And so the scene at the beginning of the book this coffle is marched in front of the US capital as it happened frequently, far more frequently than we would like to imagine. Today, one of the chained men, he kind of pauses in front of the building he faces the building he lifts his chained hands, and he begins to sing loudly. What was then considered the national anthem, a song called Hail Columbia. And I find it very poignant that the last line of the original lyrics is a death or liberty, or some variation of that so it's a very, you know, it's a, it's a call to action call to revolution it's a song that was supposed to honor the founding father the Revolutionary War soldiers who fought and won American freedom. So that capital building meant a lot to a lot of people back then. But I think the important thing about my book is that it shows it meant a lot to enslaved people as well. I talked about earlier, and we don't have none of their commentary survives, but can you I can only imagine what they were thinking as they marched up seventh street in southeast and northeast Washington DC, they could see the dome to their west. And I imagine they took you know they were already tired they were hungry, and they saw that thing and they said we're justified in doing this. We have all the justification, we need to, you know, to do what we're doing to in that building over there. And then certainly today you see the US capital that the US that the riot. How shocking that was to all of us. And so like that capital building. It's the quote unquote temple of freedom. And so here's a building, and yes it's used for a lot of very important things inside of it but it's also just a symbol, like the flag, like the eagle. It represents American freedom, and people have been fighting over it. They've been fighting over that for very, very long time. And so yeah, my book is just totally rooted in the antebellum and Civil War eras, but it absolutely has resonance today. And I'm not afraid to say and I think you know freedom and democracy are in peril today. There's no doubt about it since the capital riot. I mean it's there's no escaping that fact. And so it's we're at a really important point right now. And I just do think it's time to sort of reevaluate our symbols, our values. And then we have to ask ourselves the question, is this the time where we're finally going to secure equality for all people, or are we going to keep limiting it to certain groups. And I think if we would listen to the voices of the men and women I studied will now is yet another opportunity to, to really stop doing things rhetorically and on paper. And make it real concrete change. Let's remake you know let's let's let's make the capital the temple of freedom. Again, let's make the flag the symbol of freedom the eagle, all of that stuff and you know this is this is the moment. And so I hope, I hope the book helps people wrestle with some of these really important contemporary issues. Perfect segue to my last couple of questions. And one of them is about violence and how violence figures in this story. I thought that I heard echoes of our colleague historian Kelly Carter Jackson, who has really emphasized to us the ways in which black abolitionists squarely forthrightly intentionally incorporate violence into their repertoire. And I think that's one of anti slavery. I heard. I think I read you suggesting that white abolitionists to an important degree, follow their lead. And this means I think you know that even the, the valence of violence is more complex than I think we might sometimes allow for. Understanding you. I think so and I think a lot of people today under appreciate the violence of the institution of American slavery and for, you know, many abolitionists are escaped slaves themselves several I've mentioned already you know Harriet Tubman also comes to mind. People know in their heart of hearts that that you're not going to convince slave owners through moral suasion or anything else like that to get them to get rid of this lucrative institution and it's not only important economically but socially culturally all sorts of ways. And as Dr. Jackson Manisha sin ha many historians have pointed out, you know the abolition movement is is the pioneer of black Americans, and white abolitionists play huge role there's no denying that, but black abolitionists are not only at the forefront. They're pushing it in a more radical direction. And certainly by the 1840s and 1850s I found even in the 1830s, you have black abolitionists saying you know what moral suasion sounds great. I'd love to be patient. Nonviolent direct action, we can try everything you want non resistance is what they called it back then, but you always have a black cohort of abolitionists and they say no it's time to fight. Dr. Jackson says use force, and you know violence is not preferred it's not the preferred way but you know that the recommendation is made if you're escaping, take a gun with you take a knife with you. And if you need to you fight liberty or death. And so eventually certainly after the fugitive slave law, even the time even leading pacifist abolitionist white and black, they come around and if not they don't promote certainly violent resistance, but they recognize that it's not it's a viable option by the 1850s. And so another thing I think my book does just underscores, not only the role of black people in abolition, but their militancy, and their tendency towards violence as the as the years pass and as the government seems to go more and more to this pro slavery direction as it leans further and further to the south. I think you see black and eventually white abolitionists try to correct course by force, you know, using using violence or any other tactics necessary. I can't imagine a more apt book for this season, these upcoming holidays, Juneteenth, the fourth of July, and more August 1 and more. And I can't urge folks enough to preorder indie bookstore, your favorite local bookseller, but please take time to find symbols of freedom and let it really infuse these holidays on with the long, deep and powerful meanings that they have long held in this country. Before I let you go Professor Clavin. I do have to ask, because I know what a prolific scholar you are that you've got something else already in the works. So what's next for you what can we look forward to. Sometimes these projects, your next project has nothing to do with the previous project and sometimes it's an absolute natural outgrowth. Well that is the case in this case. And as I've sort of just mentioned in so many of these encounters. There are lethal weapons at play. And one thing I have discovered is that America's gun culture is not new. It has been around for a long time. And so what I'm looking into now in the next book will be on the role that guns and also like the buoy knives that the governor has fancied the role that these guns and knives played not only in the oppression of African American, you know, people, but also slave resistance. And so these weapons in many cases in the south are intended to obviously support slavery, and to keep African Americans in captivity, but just as often they are used for the opposite reason. And slave people who have access to these lethal weapons are not hesitant to use them. And then of course there's the abolitionist as that movement grows more and more towards violent abolitionism. There's a lot of embracement of violent armed resistance. And so it's it's a natural outgrowth and it's a siting project and I'm knee deep in it already so it's it it'll be in a couple years but it'll be out soon. I look forward to the chance to talk to you about what promises again to be important and provocative work. And with that I'm going to thank our audience on behalf of the National Archives. Thank you to our archivist of the United States, Colleen Shogun, and a special thanks to our guest today, Professor Matthew Clavin. Thank you Martha and thank you to the audience and to the National Archives, it's been my honor and pleasure. Sincerely. Goodbye everybody.