Facing the Truth with Bill Moyers

This remarkable two-hour program revealed a nation struggling to understand the unspeakable evils of its recent past. Drawing on hundreds of hours of testimony and scores of original interviews, Facing the Truth documented the investigation by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission into the violations of human rights under Apartheid. As the commission moved toward its conclusion, Bill Moyers and producer-director Gail Pellett went among the people of South Africa to gather their stories. Blacks and whites, victims and perpetrators, the merciful and the unrepentant alike recounted the detentions, abductions, beatings, burnings, torture and murder that held their country hostage to memory and desperate for healing. As Mr. Moyers notes, “There were moments during our filming in South Africa when I thought I was staring into a mirror image of our own nation. We thought by looking at South Africa’s attempt to move beyond a racially divided society—to reconcile and forgive the past—we might learn something for our own future.” Public Affairs Television, Inc., under the leadership of Mr. Moyers and executive producers Judith Davidson Moyers and Judy Doctoroff O’Neill, is creating television of true distinction. For so doing, a Peabody Award is presented to Facing the Truth.