The Progressive Forum is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2025 as America’s only expressly progressive speaker series, and one of the nation’s largest series of any kind with in-person and online audiences.
Forum founder, Randall Morton, created the first event in June 2005 as a one-off occasion entitled “Our Environmental Challenges.” It featured Houston Mayor Bill White with then-environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The rousing event at the Houston’s Hobby Center for the Performing Arts indicated to Morton there was potential for an ongoing series.
The first full season in 2006 began with Pulitzer Prize winner Jared Diamond, followed by acclaimed investigative reporter Seymour Hersh and the beloved Molly Ivins in her last public event. Al Gore appeared for the American launch of his book, An Inconvenient Truth, in a sold out Hobby Center event “putting the Forum on the map,” according to Morton. The year finished with two-time Pulitzer Prize winner scientist Edward O. Wilson, philanthropist George Soros, and New York Times columnist Frank Rich on his book, The Greatest Story Ever Sold, criticizing the Bush administration’s disastrous foray into a war in Iraq.
From the beginning, the Forum has been much more than a place for progressive commentary. The mission statement asserts, the Forum is “dedicated to presenting the great minds it believes are advancing the success of the individual, our species, and life itself from all the fields of human endeavor.” Past speakers have included great minds pioneering new fields of understanding such as Jane Goodall, Brian Greene, Richard Leakey, Michael Pollan, Gloria Steinem, and Alice Waters.
Among its national book launches, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor discussed her My Beloved World, and leading climate scientist James Hansen discussed his Storms of My Grandchildren. Cinematic icon Robert Redford appeared at the premiere of the film he commissioned, Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars about 32 Texas cities successfully uniting to fight new coal plants.
Morton said he was compelled to start The Progressive Forum as a new father of two children, feeling “We’re losing the republic” after George Bush was elected for a second term. He designed the Forum to hold in-person events in Houston and reach thousands of viewers with recordings on website speaker pages.
The 20th anniversary season starts February 24th with acclaimed MSNBC broadcast journalist, Chris Hayes, discussing his new book, Siren’s Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource. On March 16, the Forum partners with the Museum of Fine Arts Film Department to present the award winning documentary called Shake It Up on legendary Texan and feminist, Liz Carpenter. On March 31, Lt. Col. (retired) Alexander Vindman returns to the Forum to discuss his new book, Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine.