Jamelle Bouie: Defending Democracy and Secularism | FFRF Convention 2025

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie accepts the Clarence Darrow Award and delivers a powerful address on America’s secular promise. Bouie traces the nation’s egalitarian ideal from the Declaration of Independence through Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, critiques modern Christian nationalist rhetoric and argues for a pluralist democracy with room for the religious and nonreligious alike.

Watch more from FFRF's 2025 Convention • FFRF Convention 2025

0:00 Introduction 

4:42 Speech 

26:25 Q&A

Learn more about the Freedom From Religion Foundation at https://ffrf.org/

Interview: 

https://youtu.be/slUNxBfmlaE?si=QBs8PlAlzMgKgWtF

College swimmers suspended after racial slur scratched on to student’s body

"The reprehensible act was committed by a fellow student-athlete, someone he considered his friend, someone whom he trusted. This student used a box cutter to etch the N-word across his chest," the family told the Gettysburgian...

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/sep/22/college-swimmers-suspended-after-racial-slur-scratched-on-to-students-body

Opinion | Trump’s (tremendous) Gettysburg address - The Washington Post

President Trump is searching the nation for the best venue in which to be re-crowned as Republican candidate for the highest office in the land. His plan to accept the nomination in Charlotte was quashed by health officials. Jacksonville, Fla., offered to welcome a big crowd of mask-free Trump fans — but then the pandemic walloped the Sunshine State. He might stay home and deliver the speech from his backyard, also known as the South Lawn. But recent reports suggest he’s thinking about a certain battlefield in a place called Gettysburg.… https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-tremendous-gettysburg-address/2020/08/11/102997ac-dbe7-11ea-b205-ff838e15a9a6_story.html