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Tavis: It is an absolute honor to welcome Bill Moyers to this program tonight. The best-selling author, journalist, and former press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson is, of course, the host of 'Now with Bill Moyers' here on PBS. His latest book is a collection of some of his best speeches and commentaries. The book is called 'Moyers on America: A Journalist and his Times.' He joins us tonight from New York. Mr. Moyers, nice to have you on the show, sir.

Bill Moyers: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you, Tavis, and welcome to Public Broadcasting.

Tavis: Glad to be here. Glad to have you on this program, and glad I got a chance to talk to you before you exited the PBS airwaves later this year. We'll talk about that in a moment, but first, I mentioned a moment ago, of course, that tomorrow night on PBS we will feature 'Beyond Brown,' this wonderful documentary by Stanley Nelson. Take me back 50 years ago to what your thoughts were on this decision of Brown v. Board. And later on, of course, you worked for President Johnson, and that Brown case really kind of set the stage for the great Civil Rights legislation that came out of the Johnson years, did it not?

Bill: It most certainly did. It was the crack in the wall. I grew up in a very segregated town in East Texas--half black, half white. It proved that you could be well-loved, well-churched, and well-taught, and still be totally ignorant of the other half of the town. I had very little to do with the black folks in Marshall, they had very little to do with the white folks in Marshall, and Brown vs. Board of education was the beginning of the crumbling of the wall.

40 years ago, Tavis, those 3 young Civil Rights workers from New York were kidnapped and murdered in Mississippi, and I remember when the FBI called the president to tell him about that. It was a tragedy of the first order. When we look back, though, we see that those young men did not die in vain. That their deaths helped create the moral climate which enabled President Johnson and all of us who were working in the White House to move forward to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and then to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Tavis: You speak, of course, of the bravery of those 3 men--Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney, of course--the three we speak of now. Tell me what you think, 50 years later, the unfinished agenda of Brown vs. Board of Education is, as you see it.

Bill: Race and class remain the great barriers in American life, Tavis. I mean, 80% of all the white children in America go to schools that are all white. Even middle-class blacks often have to send their children to segregated schools because of where they live. We have made--the country made a great decision with Brown vs. Board of Education, but we've retreated so much. We ended legal discrimination. We ended legal segregation. We have now segregation, in effect, that remains the great barrier in our society. We still have to fight to fulfill the American promise.

Tavis: I think you're right. We moved from de jure segregation to de facto segregation. I couldn't agree more on that point. Let me ask you, though, what it is you think that keeps us stuck in this place. And I ask that against the backdrop of the fact that every president, even back to Lyndon Johnson--every president says he wants to be the education president. Every American talks about the value of getting a quality education, and we seem to talk a good game. We talk the talk, but don't walk the walk as Americans. What is it about us that gets us to talk this game about education, but we have this problem--it's a perpetual problem?

Bill: Well, this is a hard thing to say, but the fact of the matter is America's traditionally a conservative country. It took 250 years to eliminate slavery, and then that required a bloody Civil War that divided the country. It took another 100 years before the victory at Appomattox was realized in the legislation of the 1960s. This is a deeply conservative country. Racism is still very thick in this country, and we are not spending the money on these de facto segregated schools, Tavis, that we should be spending. It's a fight every inch of the way to make our now unequal school--our separate schools voluntarily segregated, economically segregated, to make them equal. We have to--we don't have the leadership that will inspire us to do the right thing.

Tavis: Hmm. I could talk to you for hours just about that subject matter, but I'd be remiss to have a great mind-- have access to a great mind and a wealth of experience that you've had and not cover a few topics. So let me move past Brown v. Board to this Iraqi prison scandal. Tell me what you sense of--your sense is of how the media has handled, or not handled as it were, this controversy.

Bill: Well, I'm proud of the fact that the media published these pictures even though the Pentagon didn't want them to do so. These are harsh pictures. They reveal a side of American life that is not new, Tavis. Remember what happened to the slaves in this country. Remember that the Europeans who came to this country practiced genocide on the Native American. Remember what happened at Hiroshima when the United States dropped the bomb that killed tens of thousands of civilians and women. Remember the tiger cages in Vietnam. Remember that famous photograph of the police chief in Saigon putting a pistol to the side of the head of a captive Vietcong and pulling that trigger.

I mean, war brings out the brutality that always lies just beneath the surface of the human experience, and this is a side of America that we need to address. We can be as cruel. We can commit as much evil as anybody else. Now, we do have these wonderful First Amendment rights that enable us to crawl up on the deck of the ship of state and say, 'Hey, that's an iceberg out there. We need to turn course.' And that's what we need to do now. We need, as a country, to expect greater performance and greater accountability from the people in the White House and in the government, and that's what the press should be hollering for.

Tavis: Speaking of accountability in the White House, since you worked for President Johnson, you've got a unique perspective on this. Tell me what you make of this administration's, uh--the problem they have with being, shall we say, more forthcoming with information. To your brilliant point earlier, they didn't want these photos out. They would not let photos--pictures be taken of dead servicemen coming back to Dover Air Force Base. What do you make of the way they handle the release of information, as it were?

Bill: Well, every president tries to keep his cards very close to his chest. When I was the White House press secretary, it was often said that our credibility was so bad, we couldn't believe our own leaks.

Tavis: Ha ha ha.

Bill: It's true. Lyndon Johnson did sign the Freedom of Information Act in 1966. The Freedom of Information Act is the best means we have to open the dark closets of government and see what's being done in our name and with our taxes.

Now, this administration, Tavis, and I say this in a nonpartisan way, is the most secretive administration that we've seen in my lifetime--I think in the history of the presidency. President Bush has done everything he can to frustrate the Freedom of Information Act. He's done everything he can to keep control of the presidential papers, both now and in the future, in the hands of the family and himself. And it's very hard. In fact, it's astonishing what the American people don't know. We just get a little glimpse of what's happening behind the iron gates of the White House.

Tavis: How do you explain, then--again, I'm asking for a non-partisan answer. I don't mean to put you on the spot here, but how do you explain, then, the continued popularity of this president? I say popularity, it's all relative, but John Kerry has not been able to make any advances on this guy when things are as bad for President Bush as one could think they could possibly be. Kerry hasn't gained ground. The American people still seem to give him the benefit of the doubt, President Bush, that is. How do you explain an administration that doesn't want to release information? There's a credibility gap here on a variety of fronts, and yet he's not down to, you know, small numbers in approval ratings.

Bill: It is astonishing to me. A recent survey says 2/3 of the people believe he is a strong leader and only 1/3 believe John Kerry is. There are 2 things going on, I think. One is the war on terror. People are afraid. He is the Commander in Chief. They're worried about another 9/11. They don't want to change horses in the middle of the stream, in the middle of a war--war on terrorism.

You know, it's amazing. A majority of the people still believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with Al Qaeda. They still believe that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They want to believe the president in a time of crisis like this. That's the first thing.

The second thing is that the conservative religious right has a very strong hold on the core constituency of the Republican Party today, and the president is very effective at using the language and metaphors of religion to make people feel good even in bad times. That's the second thing.

Also the fact of the matter is John Kerry keeps stumbling at the starting gate. He has not found his message. His message, essentially, should be America's future in a time of trial and George Bush's record. But for reasons that I don't understand--I've never met John Kerry--he just simply has not been able to begin to articulate what he will do in the future and what he thinks about Bush's record.

Tavis: You're about to exit the stage later this year, and it's a sad day for all of us who absolutely love the work you do and have been empowered by the work you do. As I get to this book here, 'Moyers on America,' it really includes some of your best stuff over the years. Tell me why now? Why are you leaving the stage? The minute I get here, I need a good mentor, you leave me here, Bill Moyers.

Bill: I'm leaving the stage so the next generation can have room to come along, and you're part of that next generation. David Brancaccio, my cohost on now is part of the next generation. The NPR just changed its anchors. Look, I will be 70 years old in June, Tavis. That's twice or 3 times as old as you are. It's not that I feel my age, it's that I feel the diminishing opportunities of time. I have some things I want to do in the last--in act 3 of my life.

I've been in broadcast journalism 32 years, believe it or not. And while it's been exhilarating, I've had a good time, I write about it in the book 'Moyers on America,' it is time for me to pass the baton to the next generation, to you and to David Brancaccio and to the new team on the 'News Hour' that will be coming along. So I've had a wonderful run at it. Journalism has been a continuing course in adult education--mine. And I've been lucky to share what I've learned with all of the people who've watched me over the years. But there is a season for everything, as the Bible says, and the season is coming for me to move on.

Tavis: It makes too much sense. There are too many folk like you who don't see it that way, but I'm impressed and amazed at your forthrightness about this issue.

Bill: But I'm not leaving until you come on my show. We've been trying to get you, and you're so doggone busy.

Tavis: Trust me--

Bill: I can't get you. I ran into Maya Angelou the other day. She was--I did the first interview ever on television with Maya Angelou. She said to me, 'When are you gonna have Tavis Smiley on?' I said, 'He's running from me.'

Tavis: Absolutely not. I can assure you, you will not leave the air until I come to New York. The only holdup is I want to do it with you in your studio. I want to meet you in person, so I'm gonna make that happen.

Let me ask you one of these impossible questions that we journalists ask from time to time. You have such a rich and a full life. Journalistically, what's been your high point and what's been your low point? There's so much in this wonderful book 'Moyers on America,' but give me the high point for you and the low point for you.

Tavis: The high point came, I think, I did a wonderful show with Maya Angelou. I took her home to Stamps, Arkansas, which was where she grew up. She'd not been back there. When I took our cameras, we did a wonderful documentary about her, and she and I--she grew up in the South, I grew up in the South. We grew up just about 75 miles from each other, she in Arkansas and I in East Texas, and so, we were walking down this road where the blacks used to live in that town up to the railroad track. On the other side were where the whites lived, and there was a grocery store over there where Maya as a little girl used to go, so we're coming up to the tracks to go over. She's going to take me and show me exactly where, as a little girl, she used to go to buy bread and groceries, and as we get close to the track, you can't see this. I couldn't feel it, but the camera catches it. She slows down, she slows down, she slows down. We get to that track. The grocery store is right across there. She takes my arm, she turns me around, and she says, 'I'll tell you what, Bill. Let's us both stay on this side of the tracks. We'll be a lot safer.' Now, the meaning of that was that the memories of that childhood experience, excruciating experiences she had, were still playing in a woman in her late 40s or early 50s. And it reminded me of how the past always has a grip on us, even when we think we've pried its fingers loose. But it was a marvelously moving moment.

The worst, the lowest point came when I interviewed Henry Kissinger when he was secretary of state. I didn't lay a glove on him. I couldn't open a thing between the cracks. I couldn't get between the lines. You know, when a politician or an official wants to stonewall us and they're good at it, it's frustrating.

Tavis: Well, this might make you feel a little better. I had John Kerry on last week and had the same experience.

Bill: You know, politicians, they just don't want to say anything.

Tavis: It was a great conversation, but you're really digging trying to get something. But I can assure you again, you will not leave the air until I come to New York and meet you in person on your set. I wouldn't think of it. You have inspired us, you have enlightened us, you've empowered us, you've encouraged us. I'm delighted to have you on our show, and I will see you in New York sometime soon.

Bill: I'm counting on it.

Tavis: Thank you, Mr. Moyers. Up next, documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson, executive producer of PBS's documentary 'Beyond Brown.' Stay with us.