I was deeply moved by a visit to the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, TX, which shows the stunning legislative accomplishments of this remarkable president. Today, on the 50th anniversary of Johnson’s declaration of a War on Poverty, I am re-posting excerpts from a commentary I wrote two years ago:   In his first State of […]

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced,” said Sø ren Kierkegaard. Personally, I have reached the point in life where I don’t feel the need to understand everything, particularly in the area of faith.   The mystery and wonder of life is at the heart of this season when we celebrate the birth […]

While the world celebrates and mourns Nelson Mandela, another great drama is playing out in Ukraine, Europe’s largest country. While South Africans throng the streets of Soweto to honor the man whose moral courage overcame the brutality of apartheid, thousands of young (as well as not-so-young) men and women brave winter weather and the security forces to stand for democracy […]

12 Years a Slave is the most important film ever made about American slavery. Steve McQueen’s harrowing masterpiece will put to rest any lingering sentimental notion that the culture supported by enslaved labor was anything but utterly destructive.  Based closely on the remarkable first-hand account of Solomon Northrup, it depicts his kidnapping in Washington, DC, and his transportation to New […]

“It’s about cheap labor,” says my friend Eric, an African American businessman. “It was about cheap labor then [when America’s wealth was founded on slavery] and it’s about cheap labor now.” Eric is not a radical. He might even be seen as a conservative in some of his views.  He and I were meeting to discuss plans for a dialogue […]

If you want to see a model of what public education can and should be in America’s inner cities you don’t need to look further than Richmond Community High School (RCHC). Established in 1977 as America’s first full-time, four year, public high school for academically talented students primarily from minority and low-income families, it fosters a culture of high expectations […]

Like many others I was challenged by the passion of veteran civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis when he spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington: “We cannot give up. We cannot give out. We cannot give in.””Stand your ground for freedom and justice,” said Myrlie Evers- Williams, whose husband […]

Lee Daniel’s new film, “The Butler,” with its masterful performance by Forest Whitaker, is a powerful and timely reminder of America’s all-too-recent struggle for civil rights and what it meant in the everyday lives of black Americans. Inspired by the life of Eugene Allen, a butler who served seven US presidents, the movie also captures the generational stress inherent in […]

I welcome occasional guest blogs. This week’s blog comes from Juliet Henderson, a high school teacher from Connecticut. She is currently on sabbatical in Spain with her wife and two children, aged nine and seven. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color […]

At the Healing History conference in Caux this summer, I told a story about my father. A number of people came to talk with me about it afterwards, so I decided to include it in this blog.  In 1935, as a young unemployed shipyard worker in Scotland, my dad encountered an idea that propelled him beyond the inherited doctrine of […]