Politicians and teachers alike have often spoken out on the need for widespread reform of our nation’s education system. Former Secretary of Education under President Obama Arne Duncan arrived at Town Hall with insight from his book How Schools Work to offer perspective on the failures in our school systems—and what we can do to fix them. Dunca ...…

Donald Trump has been criticized for his history of unsympathetic, ambiguous, and openly racist remarks. They may have reached fever pitch after he failed to condemn white supremacy in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, but perhaps no remark of Trump’s is more telling than his campaign pitch to Black Americans: “What the hell do you h ...…

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, who has been called “the most famous undocumented immigrant in America,” tackles one of the defining issues of our time. He took Town Hall’s stage to share his explosive and deeply personal memoir Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen. Vargas was joined by Seattle-based feminist wr ...…

In 2014, Shane Bauer was hired for $9 an hour to work as an entry-level prison guard at a private prison in Winnfield, Louisiana. There was no meaningful background check, and he used his real name despite his notoriety as an award-winning investigative journalist. Four months later he had seen enough, and in short order he left to write an exp ...…

Obama’s presidency awakened the U.S. to new lines being drawn in voting demographics and the fundamental changes taking place in our population. Some political analysts see the explosive population growth of people of color in America as the foundation for a new progressive majority. Political expert Steve Phillips joined us to illuminate the w ...…

Local educators and activists feel that Black students’ minds and bodies are under attack. That’s why they created Teaching for Black Lives, a handbook for creating the sweeping reform of our education system and equitable teaching strategies for Black students. The editors of this collection joined us on Town Hall’s stage to read excerpts and ...…

What do we do when our society’s economic elite become more interested in celebrating their own magnanimity than bringing about real change? Former New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas took Town Hall’s stage to present perspectives from his latest book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. He decries the modern gilde ...…

Bitter controversy consistently surrounds our nation’s judicial decisions concerning the constitutional rights of students in public schools. The Supreme Court has weighed in on numerous cultural anxieties that divide American society—from racial segregation to unauthorized immigration, from antiwar protests to compulsory flag salutes, from eco ...…

With an account equal parts dark, surreal, and humorous, journalist Maya Rao brought us a fraught firsthand chronicle of the breakneck capitalist microcosm contained in the modern-day gold rush of North Dakota’s oil fields. Rao took Town Hall’s stage to share accounts from her book Great American Outpost: Dreamers, Mavericks, and the Making of ...…

Michael Bennett is a Super Bowl Champion, a three-time Pro Bowl defensive end—as well as a fearless activist, a feminist, a grassroots philanthropist, an organizer, and a change-maker. He’s also been called one of the most scathingly humorous athletes on the planet, a trait that shines as he joins us to share excerpts from his book Things That ...…

Michael Bennett is a Super Bowl Champion, a three-time Pro Bowl defensive end—as well as a fearless activist, a feminist, a grassroots philanthropist, an organizer, and a change-maker. He’s also been called one of the most scathingly humorous athletes on the planet, a trait that shines when he joined us to share excerpts from his book Things Th ...…

Novelist Leni Zumas imagines a dystopian future that places severe restrictions on women’s reproductive rights. She took us on a deep dive into these issues through the lens of speculative fiction with selections from her new book Red Clocks. She was joined onstage by Tiffany Hankins, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Washington, along wit ...…

The term “Islamophobia” may be fairly new, but irrational fear and hatred of Islam and Muslims is anything but. Lending us perspective through his unique lens as a critical race theorist and law professor, Khaled A. Beydoun joined us to discuss the ways in which law, policy, and official state rhetoric have fueled the frightening resurgence of ...…

Seattle’s Central District has undergone changes of identity and witnessed the rising presence of many communities of color. But are these communities thriving now, and who is welcome in today’s CD? Town Hall’s Inside/Out Neighborhood Resident Erik Molano invited us to explore these questions and more, as well as the Central District’s history ...…

How should parents talk to their children about the economy: how it operates, where it came from, how it benefits some while impoverishing others? Former Finance Minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis has appeared before heads of nations, assemblies of experts, and countless students around the world—and now he joins us to add Town Hall audiences ...…

Fifty years ago, a single bullet robbed us of one of the world’s most eloquent voices for human rights and justice—Martin Luther King Jr. Humanities professor Michael K. Honey convened us for a modern application of King’s advocacy for racial harmony with insight from his book To the Promised Land. He was joined in conversation with La TaSha Le ...…

The 2008 financial crisis unleashed a chain reaction that turbo-boosted the influence of central bankers and triggered a massive shift in the world order. Economic writer and journalist Nomi Prins joined us to illuminate the machinations at the core of this rising tide of financial instability, drawing on observations from her latest book Collu ...…

How will climate change affect our lives? Where will its impacts be most deeply felt? Are we doing enough to protect ourselves from the coming chaos? Professor of English and environmental organizer Ashley Dawson argued that highly developed urban cities are ground zero for climate change. In his book Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Ur ...…

Birds are with us everywhere. They animate our stories, inform our art and music, and reveal startling truths about the world we share. Join BirdNote’s Michael Stein and Mary McCann with special guests Barbara Earl Thomas and Dr. J. Drew Lanham for BirdNote Live!, an evening of conversation by, for and about birds. BirdNote celebrates how stori ...…

In May of 2014, thousands of fast food workers in 230 cities across the globe went on strike, protesting for a living wage, workplace protections, and the right to unionize. Today that fight persists in the form of the #FightFor15 movement, whose efforts have resulted in cities around the nation (including Seattle, New York City, and Los Angele ...…

As headlines blur and death tolls rise, it can become difficult to maintain a human perspective on the impact of military conflict on lives of individuals and families in war-torn regions. To reconnect with this human perspective we turn to figures such as acclaimed Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad, known for her deeply incisive accounts of ...…

Residents of Seattle’s Capitol Hill know of the neighborhood’s history of renovation, and of the many populations who have found it difficult to find housing. Now Erik Molano—Town Hall’s Inside/Out Neighborhood Resident for Capitol Hill and the Central District—presents a celebration of Capitol Hill’s history and an examination of what it means ...…

In 2010, a controversial Supreme Court decision granted American corporations nearly all the same constitutional rights as ordinary citizens. With insight from his book We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights, constitutional law expert Adam Winkler chronicled a corporate civil rights movement two hundred years in the ...…

Disagreements between the American right and left have led many journalists and activists to investigate the factors at work deep within our political factions. Nancy MacLean, the William Chafe Professor of history and Public Policy at Duke University, joined us with a deep-delving interrogation of the American right and presents a decade of re ...…

The purpose of law is to serve our communities by leveling the playing field and creating a more just society. Documentary photographer Deborah Espinosa believes that the only way to know if a law is serving us is to listen to those most impacted. Living with Conviction: Sentenced to Debt for Life in Washington State is a multi-media and civic ...…

Starting in the late 1990s, paramilitary groups with close ties to drug cartels carried out a bloody expansion campaign throughout much of Colombia. Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno joined us with insight from her book There Are No Dead Here: A Story of Murder and Denial in Colombia, sharing her account of massacres committed by paramilitary grou ...…

The #MeToo movement is illuminating many ways in which men cause harm, consciously or otherwise, by not having a clear understanding and respect of boundaries and consent. Since the rise of #MeToo, many have grown to connect the phrase “be a man” with emotional repression and disconnection—and view the traditional culture and expressions of mas ...…

Impact investment—the support of social and environmental projects with a financial return—has become a hot topic on the global stage. So much so, says investment professional Morgan Simon, that it has become poised to eclipse traditional aid by ten times in the next decade. But the field is at a tipping point, and Simon joined us to pose an in ...…

This year’s panel of dynamic education leaders will examine the impact of the culture gaps in our schools separating students and teachers. Topics that will be fueling this event include: the fact that 90% of teachers in Washington State are white although almost half of our students are kids of color, the achievement gap, ideas for solutions i ...…

Across the globe, millions of people depend on fisheries for their food security and livelihoods. Yet estimates suggest that between 20 to 50 percent of the global fish catch is either illegally caught, mislabeled, or never reported. Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is valued at an estimated $15.5 to $36.4 billion a year, and ...…

Humans are tribal; we need to belong to groups. But according to international law professor Amy Chua in her book Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, Americans are often spectacularly blind to the power of tribal politics—and that blind spot has continually undermined American foreign policy. Chua took our stage to outline ...…

Societies and nations undergo virtuous cycles that reinforce and build the common good, as well as vicious cycles that undermine it. In his new book The Common Good, acclaimed author Robert Reich contends that over the course of the past five decades America has been in a slowly accelerating vicious cycle—one that can and must be reversed. With ...…

If the future is fluid, do lesbians still need to get coming out haircuts? Does the color of your bandana even mean anything anymore? Address these questions and more with this fierce panel of queer style innovators. Join us for an exploration of what it means to be unapologetically dapper in this city of flannel and fleece while learning about ...…

The Urban Poverty Forum is an annual educational event that brings speakers together around a common theme: to open a dialogue about the systemic issues surrounding urban poverty. Unite with a diverse and caring community including faith-based organizations, non-profits, and concerned citizens in addressing problems faced by the poorest among u ...…

Prior to 9/11, the United States had been carrying out small-scale covert operations in Afghanistan, in cooperation (and sometimes opposition) with Pakistani intelligence agency I.S.I.. While the U.S. was trying to quell extremists, a highly secretive and compartmentalized wing of the I.S.I. known as “Directorate S” was covertly training, armin ...…

With discussions of Presidential Approval Ratings surfacing in headlines, many wonder why numbers across recent presidential terms have seemed lower than ever. In The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office, historian Jeremi Suri charts America’s disenchantment with the office of the presidency, from the limited rol ...…

With each passing year the internet becomes more and more a part of modern life. Despite story after story of hacks, malware, government surveillance, and corporate corruption, we continue to rely on the web for ever more social functions. Investigative journalist Yasha Levine shared observations to help us gain perspective on this system we ta ...…

Political scientists have outlined and explored a growing fundamental misunderstanding between the American Right and Left. Analysts reference this divide when addressing the widespread bewilderment of many Americans at Donald Trump’s election, citing difficulties from liberals in understanding what Trump voters were thinking when they cast the ...…

The Internet has morphed from a tool providing efficiencies for consumers and businesses to an elemental force that is profoundly reshaping our societies and our world. Former Internet entrepreneur Andrew Keen was among the earliest to write about the potential dangers that the Internet poses to our culture and society. Now he took our stage wi ...…

The newest generation of children is exposed to technology more than any who have preceded them. For many, this technological interaction begins at infancy. Does this ubiquity represent a wonderful opportunity to connect around the world or the first step in creating a generation that’s emotionally and socially dependent on screens? Education a ...…

In the last five years, eight states have legalized recreational marijuana. To many, continued progress seems certain. But pot was on a similar trajectory forty years ago, only to encounter a fierce backlash. Historian Emily Dufton took our stage to share a comprehensive history of marijuana—from its decriminalization in a dozen states during t ...…

Modern educators have expressed dissatisfaction with our current K-12 school system. Many claim that it prioritizes only a single way of understanding, pushes children into a rigid set of grades with little regard for individual maturity, and slaps “disability” labels over differences in learning style. And when the children struggle, schools p ...…

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Cay Johnston may know Donald Trump better than any other working journalist, having first profiled the forty-fifth president in 1988 and tracked him ever since. He was the first to write about a potential Trump presidency when Trump announced his campaign in June 2015, and we turn to him now for a comprehen ...…

It may be difficult for us to imagine our childhood selves navigating the complex racial realities of our current day. Poet and former Disney star Charles Waters explored this illuminating shift in perspective with his collaborative poetry collection 'Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship'. Waters performed poetry from ...…

Climate change advocates and social justice groups say that a global energy war is underway. It’s a struggle between an extractive economy and a regenerative economy, fossil fuel and clean energy—and even more fundamentally, between the haves and the have-nots. Denise Fairchild, President of Emerald Cities Collaborative and editor of the anthol ...…

With developing international discussions of nuclear conflict, it’s critical that we gather context for the policies and legacies of nuclear weapons. To help us gain perspective, we invited to the stage Daniel Ellsberg, former high level defense analyst and legendary whistle-blower who revealed the Pentagon Papers. In his book The Doomsday Mach ...…

The political climate in our nation’s capitol may be tumultuous, but in the other Washington we’re electing progressive women with fresh ideas. Join local activist blog Civic Ventures for a live recording of their podcast The Other Washington as they interview newly elected Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, Seattle City Councilmember-elect Teresa Mos ...…

Walk into any high school cafeteria and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered into their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem we should try to fix or a coping strategy we should support? Dr. Beverly Tatum, renowned authority on the psychology of race, helped us begin this dialogue with her classic book Why Are All the ...…

Martha Nussbaum, one of America’s greatest living philosophers, joined us for a discussion of the ethical, aesthetic, and philosophical conundrums around our country’s rapidly changing view of the aging process. In her book Aging Thoughtfully: Conversations about Retirement, Romance, Wrinkles, and Regret, Nussbaum lended us the perspectives of ...…

We conduct a substantial portion of our daily lives online, but to what degree do our own biases spread through our technology? Sara Wachter-Boettcher took an unflinching look at the values, processes, and assumptions that inform decisions in the modern tech industry with her new book Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other ...…