Persecuting Speech

Our First Amendment protection for freedom of speech and the press was not born of unicorns and daisies. Instead, it originated from our founders’ stories and experiences with persecution, injustice and totalitarianism. Jane dives into one origin story behind freedom of speech. 

“Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom & no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech,” Ben Franklin wrote after his brother was thrown in jail by British authorities. What was his crime? Publishing a newspaper. 

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