People For President Svante Myrick reflects on the legacy and activism of People For Founder Norman Lear.
While celebrated television writer and producer Norman Lear is best known for his hit TV shows and films, many might not know about his decades-long political activism that extended beyond Hollywood.
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He quickly became “disappointed and disheartened” when he found “conservative voices saying that the Jewish people…[and] progressives were not true Americans [and] were not patriots,” recalled Svante Myrick, a friend of Lear and president of the organization he founded more than 40 years ago.
Myrick noted that when Lear created People For the American Way, which is based in Washington, D.C., then-presidential candidate Ronald Reagan was rising to dominance, and the United Kingdom’s Margaret Thatcher had only recently become the country’s first female prime minister.
“This Christian right-wing nationalism was beginning to dominate our politics,” Myrick told theGrio.
“Even though [Lear] found enormous success through ‘All in the Family’ and ‘The Jeffersons’ and ‘Sanford and Son’… he founded our organization, People For the American Way, to create a home for people really of all stripes,” he explained.