 Bill Moyers opens this edition of Moyers & Company with thoughts about the origins and lessons of Independence Day. We should remember, he says, that behind the Fourth of July holiday are human beings, like Thomas Jefferson, who were as flawed and conflicted as they were inspired, who espoused great humanistic ideals while behaving with reprehensible racial discrimination. That conflict—between what
we know and how we live—is still a struggle in contemporary politics and
society. Moyers also speaks with Khalil Muhammad, head of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Muhammad is the author of The Condemnation of Blackness, which connects American histories of race, crime, and the making of urban
America to modern headlines. Muhammad and Moyers discuss the importance of
confronting the contradictions of America’s past. Broadcast dates: June 29, 2012, and August 17, 2012. (57 minutes)
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