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Lincoln's Second Inaugural
Originally aired 07.04.1997
A show for July 4th weekend. We begin with perhaps the most moving, poetic inaugural speech in American history, and look at its legacy today. In his second inaugural address, Lincoln wondered aloud why God saw fit to send the slaughter of the Civil War to the United States. His conclusion: that slavery was a kind of original sin for the United States, for both North and South, and all Americans had to do penance for it.
Host Ira Glass explains that today's show begins in 1865 and ends today. Ira reads briefly from Lincoln's Second Inaugural address, which describes slavery as America's Original Sin of sorts. (6 minutes)
South Carolina native Jack Hitt discusses the Confederate Flag's prominent place over the statehouse. (13 minutes)
Some stunning parallels between the political strategies of the two leaders, by John Matisonn. (10 minutes)
Act Three. Good Blacks, Bad Blacks.
Writer Malcolm Gladwell, reads from a story that he first wrote for the New Yorker magazine about his cousins, who immigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica 12 years ago. (11 minutes)Act Four. Good Whites, Bad Whites.
A documentary by Cecilia Vaisman and Christina Egloff, with Jay Allison, about a white woman named Carolyn Wren Shannon, who grew up hating blacks in a Catholic neighborhood, and how her attitudes change. (17 minutes)
