President Trump accused a Black Lives Matter leader of “treason, sedition, insurrection” and labelled protestors as “terrorists.”īut demands for structural change also led to calls for de-platforming people whose views were deemed hostile to or even insufficiently supportive of racial justice. A disturbing number of incidents of police brutality and excessive force against peaceful protesters and journalists were documented. Free speech was also affected in the process. Millions took to the streets in support of racial justice under the rallying cry “Black Lives Matter.” Most protests were peaceful, but several cities experienced large-scale violence.

after a video emerged of a white police officer killing a black man named George Floyd.

In May 2020, protests erupted all over the U.S. Meticulously researched and deeply humane, Free Speech demonstrates how much we have gained from this principle-and how much we stand to lose without it. Yet the desire to restrict speech, too, is a constant, and he explores how even its champions can be led down this path when the rise of new and contrarian voices challenge power and privilege of all stripes. Wells and modern-day digital activists-Mchangama reveals how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide. Through captivating stories of free speech’s many defenders-from the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes and the ninth-century freethinker al-Rāzī, to the anti-lynching crusader Ida B. In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama traces the riveting legal, political, and cultural history of this idea. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the retreat. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Hailed as the “first freedom,” free speech is the bedrock of democracy.

A global history of free speech, from the ancient world to today

Free speech jacob mchangama