Dan Rather
Dan Rather is a newscaster and author who covered some of the most important historical events of his time during four decades with CBS including the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and the Watergate scandal. He served as the anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, becoming one of the most recognizable faces in American television news. Rather received many honors and awards, and several of the programs he worked on received News and Documentary Emmy Awards.
Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem is a writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organizer who co-founded and served as editor of Ms. magazine, a groundbreaking publication addressing women’s issues. She has spent decades traveling in this and other countries as an organizer and lecturer and is a frequent media spokeswoman on issues of equality. She is particularly interested in the shared origins of sex and race caste systems, gender roles and child abuse as roots of violence, non-violent conflict resolution, the cultures of indigenous peoples, and organizing across boundaries for peace and justice. She lives in New York City.
Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers is a journalist and public commentator recognized as one of the unique voices of our times. Moyers began his career in journalism and rose to prominence as the press secretary for President Lyndon B. Johnson. Later, Moyers partnered with his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, to produced such ground breaking public affairs series as NOW with Bill Moyers (2002-05), Bill Moyers Journal (2007-10)and Moyers & Company (2011-15). For his work, Bill Moyers has received more than 30 Emmys, two prestigious Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Awards, nine Peabodys, and three George Polk Awards.
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Eddie Bernice Johnson was a political leader and former nurse who served Texas’s 30th congressional district in the House of Representatives from 1993 to 2023. Johnson was a champion for healthcare reform, education, and economic development throughout her tenure. She began her political career with a successful 1972 campaign for a seat in the Texas legislature. There, she became the first African American woman vice chair of the Texas State Democratic Convention and helped to form the Black Legislative Caucus. As a member of Congress, she consistently advocated for civil rights and social justice issues. Johnson’s long public service career made her one of the most influential African-American women in politics.
Luci Johnson
As the daughter of President and Mrs. Lyndon Baines Johnson, Luci Baines Johnson has deep roots in public service. She has dedicated her life to issues of social justice, the environment, healthcare, education, and voting rights while also making an impact in the business world.
Ms. Johnson has served on many important boards and philanthropic campaign initiatives, including the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation, The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the Elizabeth Ann Seton Shrine National Leaders Council, the SAFE Alliance, University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing, MD Anderson, and Dell Children’s Hospital. She is involved with numerous university initiatives from Austin to Boston and was given an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Georgetown University, her alma mater, in 2018.
Lynda Robb
Lynda Robb is a writer, educator and daughter of Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson. She describes herself as a “professional volunteer” whose wide-ranging contributions including being co-founder and chairwoman of Reading is Fundamental, the nation’s largest children’s literacy organization, as well as chairwoman of the President’s Advisory Committee for Women. She worked as editor of the Ladies Home Journal between 1969-1981. Lynda Robb currently serves on the board of directors for the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation as well as the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center housed at the University of Texas at Austin.
Douglas Brinkley
Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University, a CNN Presidential Historian, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Brinkley has written extensively on various aspects of American history, including the environment, politics, and culture. He also works in many capacities in the world of public history, including for boards, museums, colleges and historical societies. Six of his books were named New York Times “Notable Books of the Year” and seven became New York Times bestsellers. Brinkley has also been actively involved in the environmental conservation and historic preservation community.
Evan Smith
Evan Smith is a journalist and media executive who co-founded The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit news organization focused on state politics and policy. He’s also a senior adviser at Emerson Collective, where he works closely with the leadership teams of nonprofit news organizations around the country. Evan hosts “Overheard with Evan Smith,” a weekly half-hour interview program that airs on PBS stations around the country. A native of New York, he is a graduate of Hamilton College and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
Julia Sweig
Julia Sweig is an accomplished author, scholar, and foreign policy expert. Her academic research and writing focuses on U.S.-Latin American relations as well as Cuban politics. Sweig has held prominent positions at leading institutions such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Julia has authored multiple books include several well-received works on Cuba and Latin America. Her most recent work is Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight, a New York Times bestseller published in 2022. Julia also created and hosts a podcast and produced a documentary on Lady Bird Johnson alongside writing for publications such as the New York Times and Foreign Affairs.
Eleanor Smeal
Eleanor Smeal is a modern-day American feminist leader. She is the president and a cofounder of the Feminist Majority Foundation and has served as president of the National Organization for Women for three terms, in addition to her work as an activist, grassroots organizer, lobbyist, and political analyst. Smeal has appeared frequently on television, on shows including Crossfire, Good Morning America, Larry King Live, Nightline, and The Today Show. She has also appeared frequently on radio and testified before Congress. Smeal has organized numerous events around and given speeches on the concepts of feminism, equality, and human rights as they pertain to people in and outside of the United States.
Mary Beth Rogers
Mary Beth Rogers is a professor, author and political organizer who worked for Governor Ann Richards as deputy treasurer, chief of staff and campaign manager. She later served as CEO of KLRU-TV, the Austin PBS station, and director of the Texas Women’s History Project. She holds the Lloyd M.Bentsen Chair in Business and Government Relations at the LBJ School of Public Affairs where she received the Teaching Excellence Award. Rogers is also the author of multiple books including We Can Fly, a collection of stories about adventurous Texas women, and the biography Barbara Jordan: American Hero.
Zakiya Thomas
Zakiya Thomas is a professor, campaign manager and political strategist who also recently accepted the position of CEO of the ERA Coalition and The Fund for Women’s Equality. She managed multiple successful political campaigns, including that of Justin Fairfax, the second African American elected as Lt. Governor of Virginia. A licensed social worker, Professor Thomas also volunteers with Fairfax County’s Nurturing Parenting Program. She received a Master of Science in Social Work from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science from the College of William and Mary.
Donald Ritchie
Donald A. Ritchie is historian emeritus of the United States Senate. He conducted oral history interviews with former senators and retired members of the Senate staff as part of the Senatorial history project and edited the transcripts of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s investigations. Ritchie has authored a number of books including Electing FDR: The New Deal Campaign of1932, and Press Gallery: Congress and the Washington Correspondents, which won the Richard W. Leopold Prize of the Organization of American Historians.
Michael Mosettig
Michael D. Mosettig began his journalistic career in the Carpenter News Bureau in the 1960s. He went on to be the former PBS News Hour’s foreign affairs and defense editor between 1985 and 2012. Michael received an M.A. in European Diplomatic History from Georgetown University in 1968. He also worked as a journalist and producer for various news outlets including United Press International, NBC News and MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour. Today, he travels the world and opines on foreign affairs in newspaper such as the Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times.
Cathy Bonner
Cathy Bonner has had a successful career as a corporate CEO, entrepreneur businesses in marketing, advertising, communications, cable television, and public relations for almost four decades. Fortune Magazine (2001) named Bonner as one of the 25 most influential women entrepreneurs in America. From 1996-2006, Bonner Incorporated launched fourteen state-supported college savings and prepaid college tuition programs, overall for which the campaign raised $30 billion in revenue. As a member of its Board of the Foundation for Women’s Resources, she worked to create the Texas Women’s History Project and was founder and first president of the nation’s first comprehensive Women’s History Museum, which ran at Fair Park in Dallas for over a decade. Her extensive record of public service includes as the 1991-1994 administration of Governor Ann Richards as Executive Director of the Texas Department of Commerce, the founder of three leadership programs: Leadership America, Leadership Texas and Power Pipeline, and as the organizer and driving force behind the creation of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. She is the author of What I Want Next: 30 Minutes to Reveal Your Future published by Sag Harbor Press (2006).