Our first leap into a close reading of the Declaration of Independence, the document that declared that “all men are created equal,” challenging the King of England, the masters of inequality among the Declaration’s authors, and our own generation of Americans alike. Join us for a lively discussion of the words themselves, and what they have meant.

Historian David Nielsen recalls his earliest encounter with the Declaration; data scientist Nadi Penjarla recalls the inspiration his grandfather, a revolutionary in India, took from the Declaration; and Karen Morris shares her stirring encounters with the American declaration in her British convent school.

Philosophy professor Anthony Kelley, raised by a single mother in public housing in Birmingham, Alabama, thinks deeply about where there might be room for him in the Declaration, and shares how it fits into his Philosophy of the Black Rights Matters Movement course.

Global peacemaker Jessica Murrey adds her important reflections, and scholar Cary Nathenson offers his perspectives on how the Declaration speaks to our politics in the US today.

And through it all, we look closely at what the words of the Declaration of Independence say, what they mean, and how they can remain alive in our lives.