The Film: Interview Transcripts: James Oliver Horton

James Oliver Horton, Ph.D., historian on
black patriotism
You know, America has some wonderful principles.  We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.  These are the magic words of American history and the American nation.  We are a nation with ideals that ought to be the envy of human kind.  We are a tremendously impressive nation in terms of what we want to be.  But, the fact of life is that from the beginning, we haven’t been what we said we were.  We haven’t been what we want to be.  The abolition of slavery was a step towards becoming what America said it wanted to be.  It seems to me that every citizen has a responsibility, and the responsibility is to live up to the highest ideals of your nation, and to do everything in your power to see that that nation lives up to its highest ideals.  You don’t have the luxury of being apathetic when it comes to pressing your nation towards its highest ideals.  That’s what being a citizen in a Democratic society means.  That’s the responsibility of citizenship. 

And so, when you look at the abolitionist movement and you look at both black and white people who are pressing to rid America of its most obvious contradiction, human bondage in the land of human freedom, those people were some of the most patriotic people you could possibly imagine.  They took their responsibilities as citizens seriously, and as far as blacks are concerned, they took their responsibility of citizenship seriously, even when the Supreme Court said that they weren’t citizens.  They loved the country, and they wanted the country to be what it could be, and they realized that it would never be that if they did not step forward to risk everything to make America be what America said it was. 

economic impact of slavery

the role of free blacks

inter-racial alliances

the decision to escape

importance of
Western Pennsylvania

John Brown

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