Introduction to the Series

Director A. Troy Thomas interviews historians, authors, theologians and other experts about the founding of the United States of America and the paradox of liberty and slavery.Each episode will feature an extended interview conducted for the documentary film, Liberty & Slavery: The Paradox of America's Founding FathersFor more information visit our website.Revolutionary America was a place of extraordinary paradox. America's Founding Fathers were men yearning for a nation of individual liberty and unprecedented independence.  But, the origins of America were already overflowing with a deep-seated and cruel paradox. On one hand the Founding Fathers were rallying the colonists to liberty, while on the other hand they were active participants in the barbaric institution of chattel slavery. Indeed, the Founding Fathers were simultaneously promoting both liberty....and slavery. Watch as our documentary investigates the complex characters of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Samuel Adams, among others. Discover the plantation slaves' world of Jefferson's Monticello and Washington's Mount Vernon. Listen and learn as "Liberty and Slavery" sits down for in-depth conversations with historians, theologians, and award-winning professors, all to explore Revolutionary America's most glorious victories, and indeed their most heinous sins.