Ken Burns

And at least to their credit, most people have come back and apologized and said, you're right.

Race is central.

It's the story.

It's central.

How can you say that we know exactly when we were founded and we know what's our catechism?

And it begins, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and the guy who wrote it owned other human beings.

And so how are we not constantly both ennobled and also stricken by this, by that contradiction and that hypocrisy?

Oh, to me, it's Michael Shara's Killer Angels.

I read it, finished it on Christmas Day, 1984, visiting my dad in Michigan.

And I said, I now know what I'm going to do for my next subject.

And he said, what's that?

And I said, the Civil War.

And he said, what part?

And I said, all of it.

He just shook his hand and walked out of the room like, my idiot son.

Yeah.

And even the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, may they rest in peace.

The first time through didn't turn us down.

They said, look, you know, people watch an hour, an hour and a half again.

The original proposal, five one hours.