The Rights Track

In Episode 1 of Series 4 of The Rights Track, Todd is in the United States, where he interviews leading slavery experts Professor David Blight from Yale University and Professor John Stauffer from Harvard University about lessons from history that are applicable in today's fight to end modern slavery. He starts by talking to David Blight about his recently published biography of Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era. 0.00-5.00 David talks about his quest to find out over nearly a decade to understand why Douglas was so steeped in the Old Testament He mentions Old Testament scholars recommended to him including Robert Alter  Walter Bruggemann and Abraham Heschel. He explains how reading those scholars led him to describe Douglass as a Prophet of Freedom 5.00-13.13 David says what Douglass had to say about a host of issues related to issues of inequality still resonates today He goes on to explain that being