(Recorded at Carnegie Hall on June 19, 2019) Juneteenth marks the day in 1895 when slaves in Texas learned they were free. Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation two and a half years earlier, but many states ignored it, and it wasn’t until two months after the Civil War ended that Union troops arrived to enforce emancipation. The 19th of June became Juneteenth as every year growing numbers of African Americans recall with jubilation their ...
Speeches
Read a variety of 21st century speeches by Bill Moyers that use history to bring vital context to the present, and connect the dots to reveal vital truths.
May 27, 2015The following remarks were made at the presentation of the Helen Bernstein Book Awards for Excellence in Journalism. The ceremony took place at the New York Public Library. Bill Moyers chronicles the struggle of today's journalists to report the truth despite dwindling resources and the opposition of the powerful.
December 13, 2013Bill reflects on the class struggles he observed in the small East Texas town he grew up in and the modern-day class war waged by the wealthy on our democracy.
November 16, 2012"Modern capitalism has turned the greed once considered sinful into virtue." Read the speech Bill delivered at New York's Union Theological Seminary -- the next best thing to being there.
November 16, 2011Excerpted from a November 10, 2011 keynote speech Bill Moyers delivered at American Public Television's annual conference.
November 1, 2011In this 2011 speech, Bill Moyers traces the history of the 40-year crusade by the rich against the institutions, ideas, and laws that helped create America’s iconic middle class
October 6, 2010Remarks by Bill Moyers at the 40th Anniversary of Common Cause in Washington, D.C.
January 12, 2007What does today’s media system mean for the notion of the “informed public" cherished by democratic theory? Bill delivered this speech to the Media Reform Conference in Memphis, Tennessee.
December 12, 2006"America needs something more right now than a 'must-do' list from liberals and progressives. America needs a different story." Bill Moyers delivered these remarks in New York City on December 12, 2006 to the New Democracy Project.
October 27, 2006Bill Moyers delivered these remarks in San Diego to the Council of Great City Schools, an organization of the nation’s largest urban public school systems.
