INVENTING AMERICA: Liberty for All

Inventing America brings our Founding Fathers back to life in a TV talk show before a live audience. In Episode 3, "Liberty for All," James Madison (John Douglas Hall), Thomas Jefferson (Bill Barker), Alexander Hamilton (Hal Bidlack) and Patrick Henry (Richard Schumann) reveal the conflicts and infighting behind the new U.S. Constitution and how that led to the Bill of Rights. The program features a Q&A with college students in which the Founders apply the Bill of Rights to our own time. It concludes with Henry's famous "Give me liberty, or give me death" speech that inspired the idea of America in the first place. Created by Milton Nieuwsma and filmed by Zach Liniewski and Philip A. Lane, two-time Emmy Award-winners from previous collaborations, the show was recorded at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. The host and moderator is Fred Johnson, associate professor of history at Hope College. The director is John K.V. Tammi, professor emeritus of theatre and founder of Hope College’s acclaimed Summer Repertory Theatre.