Contributing Writers

Colombian President-elect Gustavo Petro spoke to Democracy Now! in 2018 about his vision for the country after he placed second in the presidential election, losing to right-wing politician Iván Duque. Petro is a former M-19 guerrilla and the former mayor of Bogotá. “A new progressivism is emerging,” explained Petro.

Following the historic victory in Colombia’s presidential election of former guerrilla member, former senator and former mayor of Bogotá Gustavo Petro and his running mate, the Afro-Colombian environmentalist Francia Márquez Mina, we feature interviews with each of the candidates on Democracy Now! Francia Márquez Mina is set to become Colombia’s first Black vice president. We spoke to her in March, when she was running for president.

Colombia made history Sunday as voters elected former guerrilla member Gustavo Petro as the country’s first leftist president and environmental activist Francia Márquez Mina as the country’s first Black vice president. The pair, gaining over 50% of the vote, defeated right-wing real estate millionaire Rodolfo Hernández but will now face a major challenge to pass legislation in the conservative Congress, where they lack a majority.

We speak with Bishop William Barber and Reverend Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign, about plans for Saturday’s Moral March on Washington and to the Polls to demand the government address key issues facing poor and low-income communities. The march will bring together thousands of people from diverse backgrounds to speak out against the country’s rising poverty rates, voter suppression in low-income communities and more.

During Thursday’s third public hearing of the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann described in recorded testimony his call with John Eastman, the lawyer advising former President Trump on the plan to overturn the 2020 election. The call took place on January 7, one day after the deadly insurrection.

In the final part of our Juneteenth special broadcast, we look at Harvard University’s recent report detailing the school’s extensive ties to slavery and pledged $100 million for a fund for scholars to continue to research the topic. The report documents dozens of prominent people associated with Harvard who enslaved people, including four Harvard presidents.

In March, the United Nations marked the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of The New York Times’s groundbreaking 1619 Project, addressed the U.N. General Assembly. As part of our Juneteenth special, we air her full address. “It is time for the nations that engaged in and profited from the transatlantic slave trade to do what is right and what is just.

In a Juneteenth special, we mark the federal holiday that commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. We speak to the writer and poet Clint Smith about Juneteenth and his new book, “How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America.

We speak with Bishop William Barber and Reverend Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign, about plans for Saturday’s Moral March on Washington and to the Polls to demand the government address key issues facing poor and low-income communities. The march will bring together thousands of people from diverse backgrounds to speak out against the country’s rising poverty rates, voter suppression in low-income communities and more.

During Thursday’s third public hearing of the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann described in recorded testimony his call with John Eastman, the lawyer advising former President Trump on the plan to overturn the 2020 election. The call took place on January 7, one day after the deadly insurrection.

We air highlights from the third public hearing of the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, which revealed that President Trump pressured Vice President Pence to overturn the 2020 election results even though he knew it was illegal. The hearing included testimony from Pence’s attorney, Greg Jacob, who said the plan’s main architect, attorney John Eastman, actively admitted his strategy violated the law, and yet continued anyway.

In a blow to press freedom, the United Kingdom has approved the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States to face espionage charges related to the publication of classified documents exposing U.S. war crimes. Home Secretary Priti Patel signed off on the transfer after the U.K. Supreme Court denied Assange’s appeals earlier this year, part of a years-long legal battle that rights groups have decried as an attack on journalism and free speech.

We speak with Bishop William Barber and Reverend Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign, about plans for Saturday’s Moral March on Washington and to the Polls to demand the government address key issues facing poor and low-income communities. The march will bring together thousands of people from diverse backgrounds to speak out against the country’s rising poverty rates, voter suppression in low-income communities and more.

During Thursday’s third public hearing of the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann described in recorded testimony his call with John Eastman, the lawyer advising former President Trump on the plan to overturn the 2020 election. The call took place on January 7, one day after the deadly insurrection.

We air highlights from the third public hearing of the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, which revealed that President Trump pressured Vice President Pence to overturn the 2020 election results even though he knew it was illegal. The hearing included testimony from Pence’s attorney, Greg Jacob, who said the plan’s main architect, attorney John Eastman, actively admitted his strategy violated the law, and yet continued anyway.