Moyers: The Amazing Power of Music to Create Social Change{moyers interview}

http://www.alternet.org/visions/moyers-amazing-power-music-create-social-change

BILL MOYERS: Welcome. You will remember that three weeks ago, a group of parents and others who lost loved ones in the Newtown, Connecticut, school killings went to Washington. They walked the halls of the capitol, meeting with senators and urging them to vote yes for an amendment that would expand the use of background checks for people buying guns. Although a majority favored the legislation, they fell six votes short of the 60 votes necessary under current Senate rules for passage.

But the Newtown families, friends and neighbors do not intend to quit. They are part now of a nationwide movement committed to changing our gun culture. They call it the Sandy Hook Promise, after the Sandy Hook elementary school where the twenty children and six educators were shot and killed.

The mission statement reads: “America is in desperate need of a new path forward to address our epidemic of gun violence.” And then comes the promise: “This time there will be change.”

Francine Wheeler, one of the Newtown parents who has made that promise, is with me now. She is the mother of six-year-old Ben, a Sandy Hook first grader who was one of those slain in December. You may have seen Francine a few weeks ago when President Obama asked her to deliver his weekly radio and internet address or you may have watched her on “60 Minutes” with her husband David, a graphic designer, who will join us later in the broadcast.