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Transcript: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Conversation with Bill Moyers

By Kristin Miller | February 14, 2020 | Bill Moyers in Conversation

SERENE JONES: There are few in our community that demonstrate all that Union stands for more than Judith and Bill Moyers. Ten years ago, I remember it very well, Bill Moyers started this lecture series in honor of Judith's 75th birthday. The lecture is one of a kind in that it honors global women leaders who have been deeply shaped by spiritual values and faith. This evening you all are here and you know that no one better represents this extraordinary legacy than Judith Davidson Moyers. A church-going Texan by birth, Judith's life has been one long extended example of what ... Read More

Bill Moyers Responds: What Would Joseph Campbell Think?

The Power of Myth Joseph Campbell

By Bill Moyers | February 11, 2020 | Editor's Desk

A Facebook member responded to our recent post Bill Moyers and Steve Harper on Lawyers, Liars and Trump on Trial with a question: Bill Moyers responds: I don’t know what in particular Joseph Campbell would say about our situation today. But I can imagine him lamenting, as he did when we talked some 30 years ago, our failure “to admit within ourselves the carnivorous, lecherous fever that is endemic to human nature.” Malevolent greed was on the loose then – it was the mid-1980s as Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko popularized the mantra that “Greed is good” — and the disease was ... Read More

Where's My Liberty Mr. Washington?

George Washington and his family [around table]. Black servant William Lee standing in background.

By Kristin Miller | February 1, 2020 | History

The 1797 Petition From the beginning of the American Republic the disparity between the words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and the reality played out in society. In 1797 four freed men asked Congress to reconsider a law and a system that undercut the very idea of manumission. The men, Jupiter Nicholson, Jacob Nicholson, Joe Albert and Thomas Pritchet, asked Congress to listen to their case against the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 and state laws governing free status. Even though the four men had been freed by their masters in North Carolina, they weren't free in all eyes — ... Read More

Our Common Enemy is Climate Change

Demonstrators protest President Donald Trump's decision to exit the Paris climate change accord on June 2, 2017 in Chicago. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

By Bill Moyers and Andrew Bacevich | January 16, 2020 | Environment

There’s a lot of talk about climate change. A lot more talk than there is action. Not a heck of a lot of willingness to confront Americans with the fact that dealing with climate change will require sacrifice, will require doing with less. But unless we get serious, I fear for the world, in which my grandchildren are now growing up in. Read More

PBS: Put Democracy on Trial in Prime Time

President Donald Trump looks on during a bilateral meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany on July 7, 2017. (Photo by Mikhail MetzelTASS via Getty Images)

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship | November 12, 2019 | Democracy & Government

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship placed a full-page ad in the New York Timees encouraging PBS to broadcast the impeachment hearings during prime time on the regular broadcast PBS stations. PBS responded with a plan to air the hearings during prime time — but on digital subchannel PBSWorld — a station with nowhere near the reach of main PBS stations. The Watergate hearings forever changed the country and solidified the critical place of PBS in American life. Why, ask Moyers and Winship, should the 215 million Americans who watch who watch PBS via traditional television be left out of a ... Read More

Our Point Remains: PBS Should Broadcast Impeachment Hearings in Primetime

Televised impeachment hearings, 1973

By Michael Winship and Bill Moyers | November 9, 2019 | Democracy & Government

On November 8th we took out an ad in The New York Times and and published an accompanying essay. We asked that PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service, do the right thing for the American people, and to broadcast the impeachment hearings in prime time. PBS will instead broadcast them in prime time on PBSWorld, a channel with nowhere the reach of the main PBS stations. Read More

PBS, Televise Impeachment Hearings for All to See (Updated)

Richard Nixon at his desk

By Michael Winship and Bill Moyers | November 7, 2019 | Democracy & Government

The House of Representatives has announced thatwill begin on Wednesday, November 13. We believe that for the sake of the nation, public television should not only broadcast the public hearings in the impeachment inquiry live as they happen but repeat them in primetime so that Americans who work during the day have a chance to watch and judge for themselves Donald Trump’s guilt or innocence. Read More

Rep. Elijah Cummings

Rep. Elijah Cummings in a clip from 'Black Middle Class'

By Theresa Riley | October 17, 2019

Representative Elijah Cummings passed away on October 17, 2019. In 2017, Rep. Cummings talked with Bob Herbert about growing up in Baltimore, attending Howard University and his conception of the American Dream as a young man. He talks about his own father, how he was denied an education and wonders about the American Dream that he may have had if he had been given the opportunity to pursue it. Here's a clip of their conversation. Read More