As we near the end of People For the American Way’s 40th year of fighting for equality and justice for all, co-founder Norman Lear reflects on our origins. A television ad and conversations among Lear, the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, and Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., were what started it all.

“I could not be more grateful for your interest in People For the American Way,” says Lear, “which is another way of expressing interest for the American Promise.”