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On a cold midweek afternoon, hundreds of people new york The city’s high school students gathered in the courtyard of Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan. The text was “Who tells your story?” The teacher, awarded with both competitive and honorary awards and with popular praise, was a filmmaker ken burns and “Hamilton” creator lin-manuel miranda,
“I can’t believe it’s ever been this loud in this church,” Burns said, as children clapped and screamed for two featured speakers.
“Hamilton” fans ask “Who tells your story?” Well know the origin of. Wednesday’s event was scheduled for one of Burns’ most ambitious projects, “The American Revolution,” a 6-part, 12-hour documentary that will premiere on PBS stations Sunday. He’s promoted the film everywhere from Monticello to “The Joe Rogan Experience” and now shares a stage with Miranda at the century-old parish where George Washington once worshiped and alexander hamilton and his wife, Eliza, were buried, drawing “Hamilton” fans to leave flowers and other tributes.
“We’re in the business of telling stories,” Burns explained, as he and Miranda sat beneath Trinity’s high domed ceiling, as if the church itself symbolized the power of history. “I really deal. And Lin-Manuel can make things happen. This question, though, of who tells your story, is the driving question of humanity. This is the story of great people, capital G, capital M, and rarely do we get the opportunity to widen that lens and tell everyone’s story.”
An all-star production
Burns, co-directors Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, and screenwriter Geoffrey Ward (co-author of a companion book with Burns) used thousands of books and other historical materials. The film’s storytellers include a cast of Miranda’s “Avengers,” from Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep to Morgan Freeman and Laura Linney. And dozens of historians, spanning age and perspective, provided on-air commentary: the distinguished Gordon Wood and Bernard Bailin (who died in 2020), non-academic historians such as Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Stacey Schiff and Pulitzer-winning military officer Rick Atkinson, and those on slavery (Vincent Brown), Native American history (Ned Blackhawk) and the British Empire (Maya Jasanoff), leading scholars in many other fields, including
Students listened to history, saw history – Burns showed a brief clip from his documentary about the deadly winter at Valley Forge – and created their own. If Miranda could make a musical out of the federal loan or the election of 1800, then Equality Charter High School’s Shakoy Moody and Ariana Richards could create an original composition about a good friend of Hamilton’s, John Laurens, a Southerner who tried in vain to enslave black people and inspire them to fight the British. As Burns smiled and Miranda bowed and nodded in rhythm, the students paid tribute to the future freedmen, singing, “They deserve it all/Each and everybody/They deserve it all.”
In a brief interview after their joint appearance, Burns and Miranda said that their friendship began about 10 years ago, when the filmmaker came backstage after a screening of “Hamilton.” They are a generation apart – Burns is 72, Miranda is 45 – but very similar in their mission to educate. Burns speaks proudly of his documentaries on the Civil War and other subjects being part of the curriculum, and Miranda welcomes the countless school productions of “Hamilton,” calling herself a theater kid whose subconscious goal is to “write the best school play.”
Burns thought it ideal for Miranda to attend Trinity with him, if only because of his interest in revolution in the wake of ‘Hamilton.'” Miranda added: “When Ken Burns calls, you say ‘yes.'”
it’s complicated
Burns says he keeps a neon sign in his editing room that reads: “It’s Complicated.” Whether speaking with the AP or with students, Burns emphasized the need to move beyond “top-down” history while appreciating the accomplishments of the Founders. A student asked him about George Washington’s legacy.
“He is deeply flawed. He owned hundreds of human beings, he knew slavery was wrong, and to the end of his life he did not free them. He was rash on the battlefield, running away, risking his life, and therefore the future of the United States,” Burns responded. “Having said that, we have no country without him. He is tall and imposing, and he has a kind of dignity. Dr. Benjamin Rush said that other kings of Europe would look like a butler, ‘valet de chambre,’ next to George Washington. He is able to inspire people to fight for a cause in the dark of night.”
The Burns documentary comes less than eight months before the country’s 250th anniversary, a time of deep political and social divisions that extend over how the Founder’s story should be told. Beyond the desire to secede from the British, there was never a consensus on the aims and meanings of the Revolution, not even while it was being fought; The following half-century has further increased the differences. chairman donald trump He called for a “grand celebration” in July 2026, and condemned “woke” history, criticizing the Smithsonian Institution for being preoccupied with “how bad slavery was.” The scholarly community – which includes some of those featured in Burns’s film – aimed for a broader narrative, highlighting the contributions of women, the perpetuation of slavery, and the uprooting and killing of Native Americans.
Burns’ dislike of the President is well documented. During a 2016 commencement speech at Stanford University, he called then-candidate Trump “a disgrace to our history.” Eight years later, while addressing Brandeis University students, he called Trump “the opioid of all opioids, an easy cure, which some people believe is the solution to our myriad pain and problems” and urged attendees not to vote for him in November.
At Trinity, a student raised the issue Burns has often grappled with: “What parallels do you see between the politics that led to the American Revolution and the politics of today?”
The filmmaker has emphasized that “The American Revolution” takes no sides, and explained Wednesday that he began it during the latter part of Barack Obama’s presidency and continued during the administrations of Trump and Joe Biden. Burns devotes extensive time to stories of suffering and oppression, but also creates a heroic and open message of the country as moving and raw, inspiring and imperfect.
Burns said, “The best thing we can do is to understand our greatest teacher, the past, so that we can better understand where we are and, more importantly, become.” Miranda said he worked with the same “animating” principle on “Hamilton.”
“How do I, as someone born in 1980, understand these people and begin to write from their perspective?” Miranda said. “And what I learned, and you’ll see it many times in Kane’s films, is that the contradictions that existed at the founding are still contradictions, in the same way that your fights with your siblings are your family fights.”