Joined by Ali Orr Larsen and hope wright my Dear Colleague began her career in williamsburg when she was in the third grade. She was a performer in a plea on my own time, and the black music program. She has collaborated with many other departments in the foundation, as well as with other museums over the course of her career. Shes worked with a variety of educational institutions as actress, storyteller, writer, researcher, and mentor. Please welcome hope wright. Thank you. Orr larsen has received many awards, including the statewide atlantic faculty award for rising star category. Professor larsen is a scholar of constitutional law and legal institutions with a focus on how information dynamics affect the vote. Her work has been featured multiple times in various publications. And these are just a few of her accomplishments. Please help me in welcoming allie larsen. Our discussion will be about an hour long this evening. And it may feel uncomfortable at times. Thats okay. You may fee
,. We are in a building that is built in the 17 thirties, about 40 years before theres any such thing as the United States of america. At that time pennsylvania was a british colony. This was its Capital Building. They would make laws for pennsylvania and each of the 13 colonies has its own government. These are the issues in a lot of ways that will lead to the creation of the United States, most of which will happen in this room, because the colonies, as time goes forward will start to grow dissatisfied with the way the British Government is treating them, is affecting their lives locally. One of the other side issues is americans living in the colonies do not get to vote in british elections. When the parliament in london makes laws for americans, the most famous being various taxes you learned about in school, we will say this is taxation without representation. It is that idea you are not getting the voice. Thomas jefferson would write that government existing with the consent of t
Good evening, and welcome to so important and interest, slavery and the United States constitution. I want to welcome you to our final event for our constitution weekend. You may know me as the programming lead for the actor interpreters and many recognize me from my time around Colonial Williamsburg portraying free and enslaved black people, but this evening i had the pleasure of serving as your moderator. I am also joined by ali larson and hope wright and hope right, hope right, my Dear Colleague began her career at Colonial Williamsburg when she was in the third grade. She was a performer in a play on my own time and the black music program. She has collaborated with many other departments at the foundation as well as with other museums over the course of her career. She has worked with a variety of educational institutions as an actress, storyteller, writer, researcher, and mentor. Please welcome hope wright. Our special guest allie larson is a professor of law and director of the
Philadelphia. Originally thats what it was. But in the years the city of washington, d. C. Is being built, philadelphia serves as our temporary u. S. Capitol. This room serves for the house of representatives. The second floor of the building that well see in a moment was the United States senate. The house of representatives, each representative at that point in our history represented 30,000 people. We had a population at our first census of about 3 3 4 million. We had six members of the house would sit in this room and eventually from 16 states. The story of the u. S. Capitol is the story of where were taking a new constitution and actually operating it, doing things like adding new states to the original 13. Also the bill of rights would become a part of our constitution while philadelphia was the capitol. In fact, secretary of state Thomas Jefferson would formally announce the amendments to the constitution by basically coming to congress here in this building and officially annou
Of things. Its both available on amazon prime, a video series called a more or less perfectunion. As well as a companion book. If i can ask you judge ginsburg what was it that made you want to do this . Thank you tony for asking. This is addressed to what i think is a real crisis in our Education System in the us now. In that civics is not being taught as nearly and widely as it should be. Even American History is often neglected. So we have millions of students graduating each year from high school who have never been exposed to how our government works, what our constitution says. What our National Values are even. The younger person is these days, the more ignorant they are likely to be on these topics and we simply cannot have a functioning democratic republic with a completely ignorant population but we are heading in that direction. And i am, what im doing is part of a broader reaction to that in civics education. I think Sandra Day Oconnor started the ball rolling a dozen years