Virginia Film Festival

This documentary explores the ultimate paradox of Revolutionary America: slavery. Delving into the hypocrisies of the Founding Fathers’ position as slaveholders, Liberty & Slavery: The Paradox of America’s Founding Fathers attempts to better understand how the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution could have owned slaves, and why those who didn’t failed to insist on the abolishment of slavery. Investigating the well-known phrase “all men are created equal,” the film studies the essential contradiction of America’s Founding Fathers being champions of liberty, and yet simultaneously champions of slavery. Discussion with director Troy Thomas, Christopher Marshall, and Margaret Jordan (Montpelier), moderated by Giles Morris (Montpelier)

Presented by James Madison’s Montpelier with generous support from Sonjia Smith