Ken Burns says America’s divisions have long history before 250th birthday

PBS has been rebroadcasting Ken Burns’s 12-hour The American Revolution as the country moves toward its July 4, 2026 semiquincentennial, putting the filmmaker’s case about division in front of a nation still arguing over what kind of country it is. Burns has used recent appearances to say the United States has faced sharper rifts at other moments in its history, including the American Revolution, Civil War, Reconstruction, the Great Depression and the Vietnam era.

That argument is built into The American Revolution, the six-part series Burns directed with Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt and wrote with Geoffrey C. Ward. The film premiered on PBS in November 2025 after more than nine years in production, and PBS scheduled additional airings around July 4, 2026 as part of its America @ 250 campaign, which began in spring 2025 and runs through the anniversary year.

Burns has also pushed back on the notion that the founding generation was unified. In his telling, the 13 colonies were as different as separate countries, distrustful of one another and often at each other’s throats. He has said many people at the time viewed democracy as a bad word, meaning rule by the mob, a reminder that the mechanics of self-government were contested from the start.

That historical framing lands against a current political mood that is anything but settled. In an AP-NORC poll of 2,596 U.S. adults, about 2 in 10 described the country as great, prosperous or powerful, while others used words such as struggling, declining, corruption or unfairness. Republicans were more likely than Democrats to answer positively, about 3 in 10 versus about 1 in 10. The same survey found that about 2 in 10 Americans said freedom or liberty is what unites the country, while about 1 in 10 pointed to political interests or values.

Burns has argued that the 250th anniversary offers an unusual opening to teach civics and history, a view PBS LearningMedia has turned into its most ambitious classroom effort yet with support from the Kern Family Foundation. PBS News Hour has also highlighted local 250th-birthday events, from reenactments to civic gatherings, as communities try to use patriotic celebrations to bridge divides and build neighbor-to-neighbor engagement.