Bill Moyers In Conversation

On August 6, 1965, Rep. John Lewis looked on as President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. In this video, he reflects on how the March on Washington led to key civil rights laws.

Historian Harvey J. Kaye talks to Bill about why FDR's "Four Freedoms” -- freedom from fear and want and freedom of speech and religion -- are more important now than ever.

I paid a visit to New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture recently to help a large gathering of the Schomburg’s devoted friends and visitors say goodbye — very reluctantly — to Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad. He’s been the beloved director of the Schomburg for the past five years and has done much to expand the reach and the influence of the Harlem institution that devotes itself to researching and disseminating the history of African Americans. But Muhammad is also a scholar and he is now eager to evaluate everything he has gleaned about the contemporary concerns of black America from a new vantage point. He’s on his way to join Harvard University’s faculty as a professor of history, race and public policy at the Kennedy School of Government.

Here’s what the 2016 election should be about: Winner-Take-All Politics — How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class. It’s a groundbreaking account of how our political system was hijacked by the super rich and engineered to work for them at the expense of everyone else. Two of our top political scientists – Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson – published it four years ago to wide acclaim.

My guest is Eddie Glaude Jr., author of Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul. In the first part of our conversation, professor Glaude and I discussed the crisis that continues to engulf black America. "We talk about the achievement gap, we talk about the empathy gap, we talk about the wealth gap," Glaude explained, "and the value gap is this: the belief that white people matter more than others. And to the extent to which that belief animates our social arrangements, our political practices, our economic realities, under different material conditions, as long as that belief obtains, democracy will always be an abeyance in this country." We continue with Professor Glaude’s proposal to upend our politics and launch a revolution of values.

I’m holding in my hand what has been called “one of the most daring books of the 21st century,” a “book for the ages,” “bracing,” “unrelenting.” The title is Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul, and it breathes with prophetic fire. Its power comes because the author does not begin with “pristine principles or with assumptions about our inherent goodness. Rather, its view of democracy,” as he writes, “emerges out of an unflinching encounter with lynching trees, prison cells, foreclosed homes, young men and women gunned down by police and places where ‘hope, unborn, had died.’”

When I first met Richard Painter some months ago, I thought he must be the loneliest man in the Republican Party. He’s a conservative, and, of course, I’m not. But he believes, as I do, that there’s too much money in politics. Now, political insiders know Richard Painter well as President George W. Bush’s White House counselor and chief ethical advisor. He’s now teaching law at the University of Minnesota, and he’s causing heads to turn with a book advocating that we reduce the power of big money in politics.

On the eve of the New York primary, Bill Moyers sat down to talk with Rick Shenkman, the historian, editor and publisher of the indispensable website History News Network. Shenkman tells Bill that it's the voters and their emotions, not the candidates and their ideas, that will determine the outcome of the election in November. Shenkman's latest book is 'Political Animals: How Our Stone-Age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics.'

A new generation turns an ancient idea into a crusade to save the future.

Legal expert Robert A. Williams Jr. says stereotypes about American Indians have been codified into laws and government policies, with devastating consequences.

Washington continues to reward wealthy donors and Wall St but what about everyday Americans? Author and historian Steve Fraser has answers.

In an encore broadcast, journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about the nation’s legacy of slavery and white supremacy.

From luxury skyscrapers -- taller, more expensive and exclusive than ever before -- the dark shadows of plutocracy are spreading across the commons of democracy.

Lawrence Lessig and Zephyr Teachout return to talk about the corrupting influence of money in politics, and their push to change the system.

Two college professors leave academia for the rough-and-tumble world of electoral politics. What did they learn?

On Election Day, a small California city took on one of the biggest corporations in America… and declared victory.

The only independent member of the US Senate tells Bill big money’s purchase of political power is a grave threat, and shares his plan to put government back in voters' control.

Two experts on American elections talk to Bill about the plot to keep citizens away from the ballot box. And don't miss: Exclusive web-extra video

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson talks to Bill about what the title character of her new book Lila, says about the state of democracy in America.

Reporter Bob Herbert on his new book, Losing Our Way, an intimate and heartrending portrait of America in economic despair.