Gerald Horne on Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America

Hosts Celeste Carey and Cecil Prescod interview historian Gerald Horne about his new book "The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America."

The successful 1776 revolt against British rule in North America has been hailed almost universally as a great step forward for humanity. But the Africans then residing in the colonies overwhelmingly sided with London. Gerald Horne says that in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders, and sparking the colonial revolt.  

Gerald Horne is Moores Professor of History and African-American Studies at the University of Houston. His books include Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois and Race War!: White Supremacy and the Japanese Attack on the British Empire (both available from NYU Press).