This is a rush transcript from "Glenn Beck," June 25, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GLENN BECK, HOST: Well, hello, America, and welcome back to another Founding Friday.
When I first had the idea of "Founders' Fridays," I didn't know if anybody would watch them. And they are some of our highest rated shows that we have had — our highest rated Fridays on my whole time in television.
America is hungry for the truth that they never learned, and the idea is pretty simple: we spend an hour telling stories of our Founders that you've never heard before, have Americans fall in love with the people that started this country all over again, and it's really not that hard to do — their courage, their determination, their fearlessness, their stubbornness.
I fell in love with these three guys.
This guy is absolutely incredible. Ben Franklin — there's nobody like him on planet earth today.
George Washington — I hope that we can find our George Washington. Honorable, trustworthy, decent.
Samuel Adams — oh, my gosh, he'd be in some sort of P.C. jail now. He's so unbelievably religious and didn't mind anybody saying, "Hey, Sam, have a seat, stop with the God stuff" — except in his time, really, nobody was saying that.
I wanted to tell you about history because I've fallen in love with American history. It's the history of our country and it's not being taught anymore. You want to save our country? You can talk politics all you want, but if you want to save our country, you've got to know who we are.
I was out on the road last weekend. I was in St. Louis and Columbus, Ohio, and everybody I met — everybody was talking about Founding Fridays. Oh, the "Founders' Friday," it's the best. They were talking about history — history.
When was the last time that was happening in this country? But there was one show that had stood out in particular to most people on these Friday shows and I think it's because there's a — there's a whole section of our history that has been completely wiped off the face of the earth.
It is a story of a group of people that are courageous. They are founders that nobody even talks about anymore; nobody even knew that they were existing. They did up until around the Civil War. They are our black founders.
At first, I wasn't sure how people would react to the show. Quite honestly, after the program, I spent about 20 minutes with the audience and a lot of them were really hacked off. They were angry that a huge piece of American history had been eliminated.
After the show, I talked to a couple of African-Americans that work on the staff and they — Jack, where is Jack? Is he still here?
Jack was talking to me, he's our sound guy, and he said, "I talked to my father afterwards, my son." He said, I understand — he said my son watched the show with me, he said, stood up and swore. He said he doesn't swear in front of his father. He says, I'm sorry, dad, I can understand why maybe your generation didn't learn this, but why didn't we?
People in the audience — and I want to show you a little clip of what happened after the show — couldn't believe what they were hearing. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: The liberal Democrats didn't jump on the civil rights train until it became politically convenient to do so.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: What is the anti-American sentiment that's going on?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: LBJ and JFK are lauded in the black community, but they didn't support of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: How precisely did Woodrow Wilson become lionized by the progressive movement?
BECK: He didn't like the founders, he didn't like the constitution. He didn't like the country.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: He was president of Princeton University.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Governor of New York.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: A Democrat, an avowed racist. How exactly did all of this get expunged from history?
They've named scholarships for minorities after this man and it's infuriating when you think about it.
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: — the evil that came out of, and again, you don't know this because Wilson was a propaganda expert.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Crispus Attucks, he was perhaps the first American killed in the Revolutionary War. And we don't know — most people don't know that, he was a black man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is the only one from the founding era that I've seen taught in public textbooks for the last 40 years, is Crispus Attucks. Nobody else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: This is an incredible show. I'm going to spend more time learning about our black founders, and restoring this part of history. All this summer, you're going to learn things— you are going to learn things that I am convinced will change the course of this country. We are going to set history right again, find out who we really, truly are, so much of our differences will be erased. So many of the problems that we face now, we don't have to face. And the things have been erased to separate us.
This is a book that I want you to pick up, "American History in Black and White." It's been now on the Amazon bestseller list for a while since really — since that show.
David Barton is here. He's the founder and president of WallBuilders, and author of "American History in Black and White."
And, David, I have to tell you, reading this book, it's an easy read and it's all — it really only scratches the surface. But I — I have to tell you, I was ashamed of myself. I started to read this and I saw this — this is Thanksgiving sermon preached January 1st, 1808. And so, I'm reading this sermon — who is it given by, David?
DAVID BARTON, FOUNDER & PRESIDENT, WALLBUILDERS: Absalom Jones, the Reverend Absalom Jones.
BECK: Who is he?
BARTON: He is a black founder. He is the first black Episcopal bishop. He is the guy who served and signed the Declaration, Benjamin Rush, to treat the yellow fever epidemic in 1873, and probably the first black-trained physician trained by the signer of the Declaration. But that —
BECK: Really, if I'm not mistaken, if I remember right, really an amazing physician as well.
BARTON: Oh, yes, he was amazing. He and Richard Allen, it's an amazing thing, when that yellow fever in 1793 hit, Philadelphia is where it hit, that was the national capital. You had President Washington there, you had the house, the Senate, it hits. Nobody knows causes yellow fever back then. Who knew that it was mosquitoes?
Forty thousand people in town, it killed 4,000 people. So, 10 percent of the population. Doctors don't know what caused it, you've got doctors, they all left town except Dr. Benjamin Rush. He said, God called me to serve, I'm not leaving because it's dangerous. The other two guys that stayed were two black preachers, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones.
Those three guys took care of 30,000 folks in Philadelphia themselves. On top of that, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen would bury up to 120 folks a day that died as a result of yellow fever and everybody else has left town. I mean, they're gone.
BECK: OK. All right. So, now, wait a minute, Richard Allen was also — he was a preacher at a white church, right? A mega-church?
BARTON: A mega-church. He was — he preached to 2,000 whites at a church in Philadelphia.
BECK: Again, give me the year.
BARTON: This is about 1790s.
BECK: OK. How many here in the audience have been led to believe that in the 1790s, blacks and whites hated each other, it was slavery, right? And how many people — raise your hand — how many people said — look at that, look at that — that we just — that we just hated each other.
BARTON: Yes.
BECK: Actually, the truth is, with Richard Allen, this mega, mega preacher, he tried to segregate.
BARTON: Yes.
BECK: Tell me the story.
BARTON: In the 1790s, he proposed having a black denomination and both whites and blacks said, we don't want to do that. We want the integrated stuff. We don't want separate denominations.
There was finally an overt act of racism in one church that kind of gave him the impetus to go ahead and start a black denomination. But for years neither blacks nor whites wanted a separate denomination because they worshipped together in those churches in Philadelphia and elsewhere.
BECK: All right. That's not to say that they weren't racist.
BARTON: No. They absolutely were.
BECK: There's always racists, there always will be.
BARTON: Yes.
BECK: All right. So, I'm reading this book, and I'm reading this sermon and I have to tell you, I'm ashamed of myself because I come to this — I come to this part.
"In behalf of our brethren, it becomes us this day to offer our united thanks. Let the song of angels which was first heard in the air, the birth of our savior be heard on this day on assembly. Let us sing songs to him and talk of all of his wondrous works. Let — listen to this — let the first day of January be set apart every year as a day of Thanksgiving and when our children shall ask in time to come saying, 'What mean the lessons, the prayers and praises in the worship of this day?' Let us answer them by saying, the Lord, on the day of which this is the anniversary," — did what, did anybody know? Has anybody heard of this the 1st of January shall be celebrated in the entire country every year, and when our children, it should be such a big deal that when our children come and say and what is the meaning on the celebration on the 1st of January. Anybody, what?
ROBERT BROADUS, COMPUTER PROGRAMMER: The Constitution states that not until 1808 can you abolish the African slave trade. So, that is the date, January 1st, Abraham Lincoln actually talks about it in hot haste. They put the law into effect.
BECK: OK, how many people knew that? Do you know when— now, remember, England is known for abolishing the slave trade peacefully, et cetera, et cetera. They did it in 1807.
They didn't abolish slavery, just the trade of slaves in 1807. We did it in 1808. They beat us by a year, but, David —
BARTON: Actually, they didn't beat us by a year because we wrote that provision back in 1787 at the constitutional convention. Now, we gave the— there were three southern states particularly that wanted to keep slavery and the others states wanted to get rid of it. And the three states give you a little bit of time, will do it. They said, OK, we'll give you 20 years and we want to done, we want it gone.
And that was supposed to be the time so. So, back in 1787, that's what they planned for this date.
BECK: David, when did this history start to get erased? When did — when did we lose — because it was done for a reason. There's no way that systematically this can be— you know, there are some things you can lose — oh, I didn't know that fact or I didn't know that fact. But this is like the Statue of Liberty standing there. They were like, I don't know what the big lady is and nobody knowing.
BARTON: That's right.
BECK: And, in fact, it's not only that we don't know who the big lady is, we're like, you know who that big lady is? She is — she is the president of Halloweentown and she comes and takes your children with a torch. I mean, that's almost what it is.
BARTON: Yes.
BECK: We have not just forgotten history. We have turned it upside down to use it to hate each other.
BARTON: There was a whole period of time, and Founding Fathers passed anti-slave law after anti-slave law. In 1789, they abolished slavery and in any new territory, you couldn't be a part of the United States if you had slavery. 1794, they banned exportation of slaves. 1808, they banned the importation of slaves. They're going through really great.
1820, Congress starts passing laws, they said, you remember that law the Founders said about no states having slaves, we don't like that, we're going to repeal it. So, they repealed the 1789 law and put in the Missouri Compromise. So, if you come in as a free state, you got to come as a slave state. So, the next state that came in were mixed and they kept repealing laws.
And they get to 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act. They're becoming more and more pro-slavery. So, to do that, they do what people have to do, and that is: you have to rewrite history to justify your agenda.
BECK: I would say, this is maybe a year or so ago and maybe, and — probably about two years now, maybe, and I'm just starting to learn my history and, you know, really starting to be really curious about all of this stuff in American history. And I just accepted the line, you know, that I had learned in school. And I found myself down in, I think, Richmond, Virginia, is that where the Confederate Museum is?
BARTON: It's one of the museums, I'm sure.
BECK: And I'm down there and I'm in the gift shop and I'm looking for a Confederate Constitution. And, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen those, you know, where you get the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence and there's a little envelope and it's like that crappy parchment paper and that's what I'm looking for.
And the guy who's with me, I said, I've got to find the Confederate Constitution, I want to read it. So, he just goes to the curator of the museum, and he says, "Do you have a copy of the Confederate Constitution? Glenn Beck is here and he'd like to read it." And the guy says, "Oh sure, absolutely." Next that I know, he's like, "Oh, yes, well, it's upstairs."
BECK: I'm like, OK, you keep the little envelopes upstairs. OK.
I go up and he takes out a box and it's the original Constitution and he rolls it out on to the table and I'm like, I may have jam on my hands. I don't think.
(LAUGHTER)
BECK: This is not a good idea, but I read it and I actually look at all of it and I read it. It was clearly — this wasn't about state rights. This was clearly about slavery.
BARTON: It was.
BECK: You can say whatever you want about states rights, it wasn't about states rights when you — to join the Confederacy, you had to be a slave state.
BARTON: And you couldn't stand the Confederacy if you ended slaves. If it's slaves, I mean, it's states rights — states get to choose.
BECK: Exactly right.
BARTON: And there's a reason too that the title on it was called the Slave Holding Confederate States of America. That's part of the title. Now, we never say that.
BECK: Yes. I'll tell you, I learn more just from having that thing.
BARTON: Just reading the constitution.
BECK: Just reading the constitution.
BARTON: Absolutely.
BECK: It's amazing what you can learn, America, from reading a Constitution. We should try it sometimes. What do you say?
All right. I'm going to take a break. How much time do I have because I don't want to get — I've got some stuff here on — yes, OK.
We're going to take a break and when we come back I want to show you what was in the newspapers, in the death announcements of people who fought in the Revolutionary War. Oh, you won't believe the racism or the lack of it — next.
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
BECK: We're back with David Barton, founder and president of WallBuilders. He is a— he is an amazing guy because you can— you know, when I get on and I say, you know, here's what I think is going on. You can dispute that all you want because that's my opinion. But when we talk about history and you can produce the documents — and that's why I really believe David Barton is one of the most important people in America to save America today because he didn't give you his opinion, but he'll produce the document to show you the fact.
What was the relationship of our founders with African-Americans? Depended on where you were, if you're in the south, it's a different relationship, right?
BARTON: It was.
BECK: But our founders, the ones that really put everything together, they came from a world where we don't even understand it. We're just — we're striving to get back to this place.
BARTON: Yes.
BECK: Are we not?
BARTON: We are.
BECK: And I want to show — now, these are — these are just — these are from old newspapers. This one is Caesar Glover, a colored man supposed to be about 80 years of age. This is an obituary.
BARTON: Obituary.
BECK: He was brought from Africa as a slave, when a child. He served in the Revolutionary War and one of the pensioners of the United States.
What does that tell you?
BARTON: Several things — that is a list of obituaries, it's not broken out black and white. His right and — he's a citizen. It's telling you who's died, didn't matter whether were you black or white or anything, you're a citizen.
But significantly, there is a word pensioner. He's a pensioner of the United States. Now, what's that? Well, that goes with the veterans benefits that were provided.
Now, here's the document, you want to take that.
BECK: He always makes me nervous. This is original — the last Official Address of His Excellency, George Washington. This is his original from what year?
BARTON: 1783. This is when he resigns after we've won the revolution, eight years, we now win it. He's going out. He has a message to the governors of 13 states and he has a message to Congress.
Hey, Congress, by the way, this is what we have to do to take care of our veterans. Here's the kind of benefits we need to provide, for the officers, you want to get them a half pension for what they were getting. And so, this is the first veterans benefit bill program that Washington sets forth.
BECK: OK. Tell me about the classes of African-American and white.
BARTON: Exactly. He's a pensioner of the United States. He's not a white pensioner or a black pensioner. He's a soldier. He served his country, he gets a pension. We didn't have —
BECK: So, there's no — there's no discussion of color.
BARTON: No, not at all. Not at all.
BECK: Everybody —
BARTON: As a matter of fat, you know, we talk about Crispus Attucks earlier, the first guy shot down in American Revolution, he was black. The other four days shot down that day were white. He was laid in state at Faneuil Hall, and laid in the state for four days there for everybody to see.
Now, here's a black laying in state — no paper ever mentioned that he was black. It was not an issue. He was a guy who got shot down standing up for his country.
And so, these five guys got shot, it wasn't until we got into the racism preceding the civil war that abolitionists had to say, hey, remember, our first martyr here was a black American. Nobody cares about it back in the early days because he was a soldier who fought for his country. He's a patriot. He laid in state right there.
BECK: OK. This one at providence at an advanced stage. Bristol Rhodes (ph), a black man of the late Revolutionary Army in which he long served with a deserved reputation. At the siege of Yorktown, he was severely wounded, and unfortunately lost a leg and an arm and has since assisted on pension. Same story.
BARTON: Same story.
BECK: A colored man named Henry Hill died at Chillicothe not long since the age of 80 years. He served faithfully in the Revolutionary War, and was a participant in the battles of Lexington, Brandywine, Monmouth, and Princeton and Yorktown. He was interned with honors of the war.
What does that mean?
BARTON: Not only a pension, but he got a full military funeral as any veteran would get. So, that's a military funeral with the honors that go with being a veteran.
BECK: How many people here had any idea that our founders, people at this time would take an African-American and bury them with a full military rights and honors? Anybody here believe this before just now?
Your wife.
(LAUGHTER)
BECK: That's amazing. That's amazing.
And the last one here, what is — what is interesting in this?
BARTON: This is a little change of pace. But you can read what it is. Here's another black elected to office.
BECK: A free Negro man in the time of Thomas Hercules was on the 6th day of July chosen town clerk of that bureau by decided by a majority of votes. This we mention is a prove of the growing liberally —
BARTON: Liberality.
BECK: — liberality of the present age when virtue and worth alone and not mere color or tippery (ph) of rank splendor begun to recommend a man, what, request places of —
BARTON: Places of trust and confidence.
BECK: Trust and confidence.
BARTON: He got elected because of his work and abilities. It wasn't because of what color he was or wasn't. It wasn't because of him scheming for office.
BECK: Does this not sound like Martin Luther King? This sounds like Martin Luther King.
BARTON: That's a 1792 newspaper.
BECK: 1792.
(CROSSTALK)
BARTON: Black in elected office, it's just a matter of fact in the newspaper.
BECK: Again, if you don't know history, you repeat it.
BARTON: Yes.
BECK: Look what we did, we repeated it. We made progress and then it was erased and so we repeated it.
BARTON: Yes.
BECK: David, what was the thing that you found in — you or anybody else that started going through stuff and you went — I can't believe this? Was there anything that really just opened your eyes on this particular subject that you thought nobody — nobody knows this?
BARTON: What opened my eyes was in the state of Texas because I was walking through the Texas state capitol. I was wandering around, I had sometime between some meetings, and I was wondering around and back under a stairway and I mean, I was going into the nook and crannies back under a stairway.
They have — all over the capitol, they've got big posters of all the people who served in the 15th legislature, the 16th, 17th — and a bunch were missing, and they were tucked away back under the steps of the capitol. And I walked back and looked at them, they were all black guys. We had legislatures in Texas that were probably 60, 70 percent black, and I looked at those guys and said, I've never heard this. And so, I'd starting writing down names and start looking them up.
These guys were elected to office in early Texas and with some of our leaders — Matthew Gaines, a black senator who did the first faith-based program in the nation came out of Texas, for a black senator doing it. I never heard of Matthew Gaines.
BECK: When they put underneath the stairwell?
BARTON: That's what I don't know. I don't know. They were put under the stairwell. I found them back there. And that's what kind of opened my eyes. I started looking. I found that to be true in most of the Southern states.
Most of the Southern states put — Lucas Morel, when we were on on the first program, he talked about this and said, the only time in American history where losers wrote the history. The Confederate guys wrote the history that wrote the blacks ride out of history and they stuck these prominent leaders back under the stairway so no one would see them. And I find that across those old Confederate states.
BECK: America, it's time to bring them out from underneath the stairway, and it is time to learn the truth of our history that will unite us and bring us together.
More in a second.
(APPLAUSE)
(MUSIC)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWS BREAK)
BECK: We're talking about our black founders tonight and there is so much history here that we can't squeeze it into an hour or, in this case, two and soon to be three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
There is a lot coming this summer that you do not want to miss. Go to "GlennBeck.com." Sign up for "Insider Extreme." Tonight, we premier a new — "Rock Stars of the Revolution." You'll hear everything that Dave Barton has to say about our black founders. Plus, you will learn stuff that you have never read in textbooks — never.
David Burton founder and president of WallBuilders. He is also the author of a great book, "American History in Black and White." David, I want to talk to you — I'm starting to collect textbooks.
BARTON: Right.
BECK: And we were talking about it in my office just the other day. We could open up textbooks, depending which one and where it's from and see what they're teaching in school. And we know — because like you, you've gone to the original sources.
I've read — frankly, I had someone on the set earlier. I've read the diaries of some of these people. I mean, I've read, I've seen, I've touched the documents.
BARTON: Yes.
BECK: And you read the textbooks and it's completely upside down.
BARTON: Yes.
BECK: Is there — is there a way if — by not passing you throughout gates of academia, you know, because they hold all the keys. Is there a way to restore this history?
BARTON: Yes.
BECK: And — is there? How?
BARTON: I'm going to use the Texas model for an example, because we talked in the program about how every one of these black guys we just mentioned would now have back in the Texas textbooks and because of the nation's textbook market that's coming to all 49 other states. I mean, this will affect all national standards.
This started 15 years ago. There are 15 elected State Board of Education members in Texas. That's a down ballot race. Nobody ever pays attention to it. They're all elected. Each comes from a — from a district the size of two congressional districts.
They started 15 years saying, "You know what? Whenever we're going to change the content of the text books, we have to look at people who are in charge of what goes in the textbooks."
And we started electing solid, conservative, traditional, patriotic American commonsense people 15 years ago. We finally got where we have a majority on the board. And it came just in time for all these books that we have in these history standards. You know, there was the academics that shoot us up and came after us, but these commonsense people that -
BECK: That's all I want — I don't want a conservative or a liberal.
BARTON: That's right.
BECK: I just want somebody who doesn't —
BARTON: Accurate.
BECK: Doesn't hate the country.
BARTON: That's right.
BECK: When it's a coin toss, that will give the coin toss to us or even put up in the textbooks. It's a coin toss. We're not sure.
BARTON: That's right.
BECK: You know what I mean? It's a coin toss, but also somebody who just roots it in fact.
BARTON: That's right.
BECK: Because it's so distorted.
BARTON: It is. Well, one of the things that I did in going through and just helping these guys analyze it was — I said, OK, look at the heroes they have given us, because 240 school teachers put together standards. We're supposed to edit it and they vote on it. So we looked at all about 100 and some odd names. And overt liberals outnumbered overt conservatives by a four-to-one margin. Let's at least get some balance in here.
Let's get something — and we started adding these good guys. And of course, they screamed, "Oh, you're turning the textbooks to the right." No, we're just bringing them back to even —
BECK: Well, what about black and white?
BARTON: Black and white as far as the textbooks — what was interesting was the last standards done 12 years old, 11 percent of the names mentioned in the textbook were non-white. The ones we just did is now up to 25 percent, which increased that number specifically. And they're screaming at us, because we're turned it conservative. No, we're just starting to teach history the way it actually happened.
BECK: It's unbelievable. Somebody wanted to tell me one of the stories that you -
BARTON: I've got some good friends in the Special Forces. And those guys — they're really cool dudes in Special Forces. Now, it goes back to OSS from World War II. And then we came up with John F. Kennedy Navy SEALs and Special Forces. We had Special Forces back in the American Revolution.
One of the first examples was in December 1776, our second in command, Gen. Charles Lee, got captured by the British. The only way we're going to get him back is to capture a British general of equal rank and make a prisoner exchange.
So what they do is they come up with this commando-type plan, snatch and grab. We've got to go in there in the middle of this big British fort where the number two general is, snatch the guy and get him out without the British knowing. Then we'll make an exchange.
So up Newport, Rhode Island, where the British were — Gen. Richard Prescott was the number two general. And they come up with a plan to go right in the middle of his massive installation and catch him and get him out.
Lt. Col. William Barton came up with a plan. He went to his 40 top soldiers — this is in America. He went to his top 40, black and white, got them all together and said, "Guys, here is what I propose. We're going to go in at night. We're going to capture him in his sleeping quarters at night. We're going to have to go by all the British warships. We have to go by all the guards. We'll get there. We'll capture him. We'll bring him out and then we'll make the exchange."
And he said, "This will probably get you killed. Anybody want to do this?" All 40 raised their hands, "I want to do it. I want to go." So they got into row boats. They put clothing around the oars so that when they were rowing, the muffled sound they rode under the prow of the British war ships, rode right up on the land where all the guards were.
They snuck upon British guards, knocked them all out, tied them up, secured them. The finally found their way back to his quarters. And they got there and his door was locked. And you know, what do you do now?
BECK: That sucked.
BARTON: Yes.
BECK: Did anybody bring a key?
BARTON: Exactly.
BECK: You're thinking, man.
BARTON: Exactly.
BECK: Right.
BARTON: It's locked. And they said, "Oh, gosh. How do we do this quiet?" And they're wondering about what to do. And a black patriot, Prince Sisson, said, "Moved out of the way," just shoved them aside. He ran at the door, used his head as a battering ram, hit the door.
The door cracked but it didn't go through. He backed up, hit it a second, and it exploded. And they went in. Of course, the British general was absolutely shocked, you know, what just happened to his door.
And Prince Sisson — that's the guy who just — he's the door kicker. My son-in-law — we call a door kicker because he's pretty notorious in Iraq. But this is a door kicker from way back then.
And he broke that door and went and captured the general. They brought him out, muffled him and brought him back across. They made a successful prisoner exchange. That's the first Special Forces operation in the American Revolution.
BECK: Using your head?
BARTON: That's right.
BECK: Chris?
CHRIS HARRIS, IT DEPARTMENT SUPERVISOR: I'm 37 years old. Been out of high school for almost 20 years. I actually went to some of the best schools available, which is Department of Defense Dependents' Schools overseas in Germany.
And I felt like I got a great education. But what's really upsetting especially since I have seen David Barton before and also watched this show. What really hacked me off, as you said, is that I'm just now finding out about these things.
I looked at some textbooks from friends of mine who were, like, stayed in school. They're still teaching about the same four to five standard black people in history. Pretty much, it's always Harriet Tubman, Crispus Attucks, Frederick Douglass. Some of them mentioned Benjamin Banneker.
But it's always the same four or five as if there were only four or five black people who contributed to this country throughout its history. And it's just like, why is this still the same way with all the information you have today in 2010?
BECK: May I ask a question, because Javier and Cynthia, you are shaking your heads while he's saying this. And you look a little disgusted by this whole thing. Chris, could you pass Javier a microphone? Because, I mean, it's robbing heritage.
JAVIER DAVID, FREELANCE WRITER: Absolutely. And I was present in the audience at your last show where you did this. And I had some very strong comments that I made about Woodrow Wilson.
BECK: Yes.
DAVID: And what I mentioned specifically on that show was the fact that what I found particularly galling in that instance was there are scholarships for minorities named after Woodrow Wilson.
BECK: Right.
DAVID: And I find a lot of this particularly infuriating because like Chris, I went to some very schools. And these are names, aside from maybe one or two of them, that I had never been exposed to and I had never heard about until, you know, this day or the last show that we had — the very first time that you would have this discussion.
BECK: Cynthia, how did you feel?
CYNTHIA JOHNSON, ATTORNEY: Well, this is my first time ever hearing this. And I'm a little appalled. I mean, I'm not that far removed from even college and I took African-American courses in some of this stuff that I'm hearing for the first time. And I mean, public education — one thing, but when you're paying for your education and you're not getting this information, it's really, really sad.
BECK: I have news for everyone. We're paying for everybody's education. Thank you. Stephen Broadus, you had a question?
STEPHEN BROADUS, STUDENT: In 1722, England created —
BARTON: 1772?
BROADUS: 1772. My bad. England created a law ending the slave trade. The slave trade continued anyways and America continued to get slaves. And three years later, the American Revolution started. And do you believe that this law contributed to the beginning of the American Revolution.
BECK: Stand by. We'll get that answer and more from the audience in just a second.
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: America, I have to tell you, I just said to David right before we went on the air that I've gotten the chills like three times this episode because I just know this is the answer, the answer to our problems — restoration.
I'm reading — we were talking in the break, I'm reading a book called "The Children", which is the story of the 1960 and the beginning of the civil rights movement and what these people went through. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.
And I don't know a lot of that history because there's this barrier — imagined or not, there's this barrier. How many African-Americans don't know the history of these guys and the American Revolution?
When we restore that history and we restore the truth about segregation and all of the nastiness there, whites and blacks can just knit together because we've both been lied to. We really have both been lied to. Now, Stephen asked a question before we took a break.
BARTON: Great Britain, in 1772, wiped out slavery, passed a law to do so, didn't have any impact in America even though the British didn't follow it.
And the answer is, yes, in 1773, Rhode Island started passing anti-slavery laws. In 1774, Massachusetts started passing anti-slavery laws. Pennsylvania passed anti-slavery laws because they now have the permission to do so.
In 1774, after all those states start passing them, King George III came in and vetoed every American anti-slavery law, and said, oh, stop. You guys are part of the British Empire. We have slavery in the British Empire. As long as you're part of the British Empire, you're going to have slavery.
And that's when several founders said, "Great. Let's not be part of the British Empire anymore." So given the opportunity, you'll find that in the original Declaration, the desire to end slavery is listed twice as often as taxation without representation. Twice — so hear taxation. We don't hear the desire to end slavery.
BECK: Debbie?
DEBBIE, AUDIENCE MEMBER: Your book is great. Thank you very much.
BARTON: Thank you.
DEBBIE: Have you considered doing your own black history month? Because we're doing a poor job of it.
BARTON: We actually have. On our Web site, we've come out with a number of black history little magazines just telling stories of these guys. And there on our Web site, you can get these things.
But I tell you, I have a blast — these of my heroes. I mean, I'm an American and these are Americans. I love good models. And we just didn't know these guys, and so we enjoy digging back in. And I'll say, this is an old 1855 textbook. It is not skinny textbook. There's nothing but black patriots in the American Revolution in that. It's not like we're shallow on black patriots.
(CROSSTALK)
BARTON: That is "Colored Patriots in the American Revolution," William Nell.
BECK: Who here even knew in 1851 —
BARTON: 1855.
BECK: 1855 there was a school textbook "Colored Patriots." Who even knew that?
BARTON: It hasn't been reprinted, but it's on Google Books. If you want to read that book, go to Google Books and you can read. And it's done by a black historian, William Nell, who is the first black to hold any federal office in the federal government.
BECK: Jen?
JEN ABATE, BANKER: I'm really angry about the rewriting of history and, you know, all this history that's not included in the schools' textbooks. And for me, anger motivates me.
And aside from the good work with Mr. Barton and even assuming, like you said, if these textbooks start to include all of this excellent history, you know, I'm still cynical that they even the public school system will teach it in a way that doesn't twist it almost to the negative. And I want to know what else that we can do and what other efforts are underway to get this —
BECK: OK, let's answer that question because I think that is a critical, critical question and a critical answer. We'll do that next.
(APPLAUSE)
BECK: We have — before we went into the break, Jan asked us — is it Jen or Jan? Jen. Jen asked us a question about, you know — what do you do? David, you have to be a part of the school district.
BARTON: Yes.
BECK: You have to be involved in the textbooks and everything that you're doing in Texas. And people have to be involved with their schools. But correct me if you think I'm wrong — America, I think we're running out of time.
And this is — I really view our children as clay jars and it is the scripture — can I have that book? This is, this is the scripture, American scripture, "Colored Patriots." If we lose it with all of this freedom and technology, it will never be seen again if something goes awry.
We must not only learn it, seek it out, but teach it to our children and make sure they know it and waste no time. You disagree?
BARTON: And we've got to be intolerant of school districts who won't teach it, because if we know it and teach our kids, then we've got a basis to go, "Look at the textbooks you've got."
BECK: Right.
BARTON: You've admitted that this guy and this guy and this guy and this guy, and make it so intolerant they'd have to get a different textbook.
BECK: I'm trying to write a book for Christmas that for kids. It's on American heroes and patriots. And it will show the textbooks off to the side. It will show this is what you'll learn in your textbooks and this is where you find the information that shows that's wrong, so we can teach our children not only the true stories, but then teach our children to find the right answer and then stand up respectfully to their teachers.
The other thing I want to mention to you is the last "American Revival" that I'm doing — we've done, what, three of these and they've been sold out to 10,000 people each. We're doing the last one in July in Salt Lake City. It's Saturday, I think, the 17th of July.
Tickets are available. We'll put it at the bottom of the screen. I think it's GlennBeckTours.com. But it's a seven-hour event. This isn't for somebody who just wants, you know, I'm just going to have a good time. You'll have a great time. It's almost a spiritual event. It really is.
And this is the kind of stuff that you learn and the only complaint we've had on this is people say, "Can you turn the house lights up a little more? Because I want to take more notes."
It is up to you to be able to preserve this. You must get active. The most important thing you can do is read history. Read, search, question with boldness, even the very existence of God, and then teach it to your children. We'll be back. Final thoughts, next.
(APPLAUSE)
BECK: All right. We're going to leave things tonight with Vanessa.
VANESSA JEAN LOUIS, SCHOOL COUNSELOR: I just think that, like Marcus Garvey said, "A people without knowledge of their history is like a tree without roots." And this history is really important so that we can change the victim attitude that's monopolized the conversation.
BECK: And the same for everyone that is an American. We've got to know our roots.
From New York, good night America.
(APPLAUSE)
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