Speakers Forum

Tens of thousands of people participated in the second annual Seattle Women’s March. The day started with a rally of fiery speeches to warm up participants on a chilly, rainy morning.

There have been so many momentous days recently. Today, for instance, women around the U.S. and the world (and their allies) are participating in the second annual Women’s March. Yesterday, Congress shut down the government due to differences over border security and immigration.

The political climate in the United States is marked by ultra-partisanship. So it’s a good time to ask, how’s the Constitution holding up? A recent event brought together two people with a depth of political and jurisprudent experience to explore that question.

This year will mark the 50 th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Today, the United States celebrates the birth of the great non-violence activist and civil rights leader. The federal holiday was signed into law in 1983 by President Reagan, but it wasn’t until the year 2000 that all 50 states officially observed the holiday.

The acronym MAD stands for mutual assured destruction. The concept has been a cornerstone of U.S. military security policy since the creation of nuclear weapons. It's based on the theory that no super-power leader would start a nuclear war knowing Armageddon would be the result. To this day, that either helps you sleep at night or the opposite.

Maria Hinojosa and her team at Latino USA have been reporting on how Latinos and Hispanics experience and impact the United States since 1992. That ethnic group accounted for more than half of the total U.S. population growth from 2000 to 2014. The Pew Research Center predicts they will make up 24 percent of the population here by 2065.

And now for something maybe completely unexpected. Tom Hanks wrote a book. The prolific actor credits writer and filmmaker Nora Ephron with encouraging his writing years ago on the set of “Sleepless in Seattle.” He later wrote a piece about a friend in the film business and ran it by Ephron, asking “Is this a thing?” She said yes, with some qualifications, and Hanks took her advice to heart.

As we begin another new year in these United States of America, it’s an opportune time to listen in to the creative voices of descendants of the original inhabitants of these lands.

Khizr Khan is an American citizen of Pakistani descent. He is perhaps most famous for the fact that he carries a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his breast pocket and for a speech he gave at the Democratic National Convention in 2016.

Looking back at a year that was tumultuous in so many ways, this talk by author Walter Isaacson stands out as something that has almost nothing to do with our modern day trials and tribulations.

For the past eleven years the crew of Town Hall Seattle’s "Short Stories Live" series has presented a celebration of storytelling they call "A Rogue’s Christmas." Curator Jean Sherrard chooses seasonally-appropriate readings. It’s always a festive, thought-provoking and slightly devious gathering — just the thing to keep Christmas weird in Seattle.

There’s a rap against Hillary Rodham Clinton: that she’s cold, robotic. That was certainly not the persona she presented on her visit to Seattle this week. If Clinton were a robot, she’d be the Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em variety, with a healthy dash of reflective and forward-thinking feminist, doting grandmother and super-sharp political analyst. Clinton was on the road with her new book, “What Happened.” The work is a reflection on her failed run for president, and how she is recovering from the loss.

Writer Isabel Allende has cast a spell on her readers since at least 1982, when she published her first major work “The House of the Spirts.” Her fiction, noted for elements of magic realism, has struck a deep chord. She has sold nearly 70 million books.

What’s a progressive citizenry to do? It’s been over a year since President Donald Trump was elected. Liberal Seattleites reacted to that event (they call it “the incident” here) in various ways. The individuals you’ll hear in these talks switched careers, took a road trip to conservative Oregon, reflected on the balance between parenting and activism, sought ways to confront family divisions, and took up boxing.

In 1997 Dr. Beverly Tatum published her acclaimed book "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race.” The work explores an enduring American reluctance to acknowledge the realities of racial identity development and racism. For the last 20 years, it has served as a catalyst in efforts to address those realities.