President Obama presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to 16 people in a ceremony today at the White House. Check out Democracy Now!’s past interviews with some of those who received the award:

* Rev. Joseph Lowery
* Mary Robinson
* Archbishop Desmond Tutu
* Muhammad Yunus

August 12, 2009  |  Filed under DN Archives

Imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier will have his first full parole hearing in 15 years on Tuesday. He has been in prison for the past 33 years after being convicted of killing two FBI agents during a shootout on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. Peltier has long maintained his innocence and is widely considered a political prisoner who was not granted a fair trial. In 2000, we conducted an extensive interview with Peltier from his jail cell:

DOWNLOAD MP3

July 27, 2009  |  Filed under DN Archives

President Obama said Cambridge police acted “stupidly” in the arrest of leading African American scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in his own home last week. Obama said the incident is a reminder that racism “still haunts us.” Check out our extended interview with Gates in 2004 on “America Behind the Color Line.”

Watch/Listen/Read Transcript

July 22, 2009  |  Filed under DN Archives

The Environmental Protection Agency has declared a public health emergency in the town of Libby, Montana, where hundreds of people have died from asbestos contamination. It is the first time such a declaration has been made by the EPA. For decades, W.R. Grace and Co. mined asbestos-contaminated vermiculite in Libby.
See extended Democracy Now! coverage

June 19, 2009  |  Filed under DN Archives

The legendary radio broadcaster, writer and oral historian Studs Terkel has died at the age of 96 in Chicago. Over the years Terkel has been a regular guest on Democracy Now!

In 2005, Studs Terkel appeared on Democracy Now! shortly after undergoing open heart surgery. He told Amy Goodman, “My curiosity is what saw me through. What would the world be like, or will there be a world? And so, that’s my epitaph. I have it all set. Curiosity did not kill this cat. And it’s curiosity, I think, that has saved me thus far.”

October 31, 2008  |  Filed under DN Archives

The National Book Critics Circle Awards have just been announced and two past DN! guests were among the winners: Edwidge Danticat (“Brother I’m Dying”) and Harriet Washington (“Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present")

March 07, 2008  |  Filed under DN Archives

Watch/Listen to Democracy Now!’s Interviews With Alex Gibney, director of the Oscar-winning documentary “Taxi to the Dark Side.” [2/1/08 || 2/12/08 ]

February 25, 2008  |  Filed under DN Archives

Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon on the Release of Ex-CIA Operative Posada Carriles, the Cuban 5, Guantanamo and the Health of Fidel Castro

‘The Man of Two Havanas’: Max Lesnik on His Transition From Cuban Revolutionary to Exile to Target of Terrorist Attacks by Anti-Castro Cuban Militants in Miami

Fidel Up Close: Filmmaker Jon Alpert on His Many Encounters With Castro Over the Past 30 Years

More

February 19, 2008  |  Filed under DN Archives

Check out our award-winning coverage of Indonesia’s brutal invasion and occupation of East Timor

January 28, 2008  |  Filed under DN Archives

Tariq Ali on Pakistan in Turmoil after Benazir Bhutto’s Assassination

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto Assassinated

Deception: How the United States Secretly Helped Pakistan Build Its Nuclear Arsenal

Crackdown On the Press: General Musharraf Shuts Down Two of Pakistan’s Biggest Private Television News Channels

Under House Arrest, Pakistani Human Rights Leader Asma Jahangir Speaks Out on Musharraf’s Crackdown

Thousands Arrested in Pakistan Defying Musharraf’s Crackdown

Pakistan’s Musharraf Gets U.S. Backing for Crackdown Just Days Before Court Decision on Case Challenging His Rule

December 27, 2007  |  Filed under DN Archives