In this special episode of the Forum podcast, we talk with Paul Neimann, one of the originators of the Forum.

He and his wife Diane moved to Minneapolis in the 1970s and believed their new home deserved a great speaker series. That idea became the nationally renowned Westminster Town Hall Forum.

Diane passed away in 2019. But Forum director Tane Danger sat down with Paul to learn more about the origins of the Forum. Where did the idea originally come from? Who was it intended for? Was the Forum always free? How did they find the first speakers?

The Forum has now hosted hundreds of speakers and touched hundreds of thousands of hearts and minds. That's in no small part thanks to Paul and Diane Neimann's efforts more than four decades ago.

Please, enjoy this short history of the Forum's earliest days. And join us in thanking Paul and Diane Neimann for helping get this treasured program started.

Dr. Keyu Jin speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis.

Born in China and educated in the U.S., she is a world-renowned economist at the London School of Economics. Her most recent book is "The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism."

In it and in this talk, she explains how China became the most successful economic story of our time as it has shifted from primarily state-owned enterprise to an economy that is thriving in entrepreneurship, and participation in the global economy. She also discusses how the U.S. and China might improve relations by better understanding one another's economic systems.

This program was recorded in front a live audience at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis on April 18, 2024. It was moderated by Tane Danger.

Learn more about the Westminster Town Hall Forum at our website: www.WestminsterForum.org

Keyu Jin is a tenured professor of eco­nomics at the London School of Economics and Political Science who has worked with the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. She is currently a global board member for Richemont. Born and raised in Beijing, she holds a BA, an MA, and a PhD in eco­nomics from Harvard University, and resides with her family in London and Beijing.

Legendary tech journalist Kara Swisher in conversation with Tane Danger at the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis.

Swisher's newest work is "Burn Book; a Tech Love Story." It’s part memoir, part history and, most of all, a necessary recounting of tech’s power players and influence. In it she shares how tech came to be at the center of global commerce and power, and the risks that poses to democracy and humanity. She'll be in conversation with Forum director Tane Danger and then take questions from the audience.

This program was recorded in front a live audience at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis on March 19, 2024.

Learn more about the Westminster Town Hall Forum at our website: www.WestminsterForum.org

Kara Swisher is the host of the podcast On with Kara Swisher and the cohost of the Pivot podcast with Scott Galloway, both distributed by New York magazine. She was also the cofounder and editor-at-large of Recode, host of the Recode Decode podcast, and coexecutive producer of the Code conference. She is a former contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and host of its Sway podcast and has also worked for The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

Award-winning journalist Michele Norris speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis. She spoke about her best-selling book, "Our Hidden Conversation; What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity."

For more than a decade, Norris asked people around the world to send in their stories. The prompt was simple: "Race. Your Story. Six Words. Please Send."

She and the Race Card Team collected more than 500,000 stories, many of which are complied in and expanded in "Our Hidden Conversations." The results are shocking in their depth and candor, spanning the full spectrum of race, ethnicity, identity, and class.

The program opened with a dramatic reading of some of those stories by a diverse cast of community leaders: The Honorable Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan, Heidi Adelsman, Roxane Battle, Sheletta Brundidge, Bill Kiffmeyer, Patricia Lopez, Kerri Miller, R.T. Rybak, Jasmine Brett Stringer, Laysha Ward, Tom Weber, Lizz Winstead, Jai Winston and Boua Xiong.

Afterwards, Norris sat down for an in-depth conversation with Forum director Tane Danger. She also answered audience questions.

This program was recorded in front a live audience at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis on February 1, 2024.

Learn more about the Westminster Town Hall Forum at our website: www.WestminsterForum.org

Minneapolis native Michele Norris is one of America’s most trusted voices in journalism, earning several honors over a long career, including Peabody, Emmy, Dupont, and Goldsmith awards. She is a columnist for The Washington Post Opinion Section, the host of the Audible Original Podcast, Your Mama’s Kitchen, and from and from 2002 to 2012 she was a cohost of NPR’s All Things Considered. Norris is also the founding director of The Race Card Project, a Peabody Award–winning narrative archive where people around the world share their reflections on identity—in just six words. Her first book, The Grace of Silence, was named one of the best books of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Kansas City Star. Before joining NPR, Norris spent almost ten years as a reporter for ABC News covering politics, policy, and the dynamics of social change. Early in her career, she also worked as a staff writer for The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times.

Transgender rights activist and author Raquel Willis speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum.

Raquel Willis is an award-winning activist, author, and media strategist dedicated to Black transgender liberation. She is the co-founder of The Transgender Week of Visibility and Action.

She spoke at the Forum about her work and her memoir, "The Risk it Takes to Bloom; On Life and Liberation." This talk was recorded in front of a live audience at Westminster Presbyterian in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota on December 8, 2023.

Learn more at the Westminster Town Hall Forum website, www.WestminsterForum.org

Nancy Giles speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis on November 9, 2023.

Giles is a comedian, actress, and social commentator. Since 2002 she has been a regular contributor to the Peabody Award-winning program CBS News Sunday Morning. In that time, she has earned five Emmy Awards for her unique blend of common-sense wisdom, laugh-out-loud humor, commentary, and interviews.

She’s a veteran of Chicago’s esteemed Second City improv troupe. She has appeared Off-Broadway in Nora & Delia Ephron’s Love Loss, and What I Wore, and won the Theatre World Award for the musical satire Mayor. She was one of the stars of the acclaimed series China Beach and the sitcom Delta.

Her solo shows include Black Comedy: The Wacky Side of Racism, Notes of a Negro Neurotic, Things My Afro Taught Me, and The Further Adventures of the Accidental Pundette, which The New Yorker called “the surprise of (this) annual festival… a rocking standup comedy.”

Author and NPR host Steve Inskeep speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum.

Inskeep's latest book is "Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America." It shares Lincoln’s lessons for bridging intense political divisions. He spoke at the Forum about what we can learn from Lincoln to help navigate our own divisive politics.

Steve Inskeep is a cohost of NPR’s Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio program in the United States, and of NPR’s Up First, one of the nation’s most popular podcasts. His reporting has taken him across the United States, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Pakistan, and China. His search for the full story behind the news has led him to history; he is the author of multiple books including "Instant City," "Jacksonland," and "Imperfect Union."

This program was recorded in front a live audience at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis on October 7, 2023.

Learn more about the Westminster Town Hall Forum at our website: www.WestminsterForum.org

Senior correspondent for APM Reports Emily Hanford speaking at the Westminster Town Hall Forum.

For more than a generation, schools across the U.S. embraced a specific methodology of teaching kids to read. The problem? Cognitive scientists had proven decades before it didn’t actually work. In her award-winning podcast "Sold a Story," Emily Hanford investigated the influential authors who promoted this idea and the company that sold it to schools across the country. She spoke at the Forum about what that has meant for millions of kids and what it says about education in the United States.

Emily Hanford is a senior correspondent and producer for APM Reports, the documentary and investigative reporting group at American Public Media. Her work has appeared on NPR, in The New York Times and other publications. For the past several years, she has been reporting on reading instruction. Her 2018 podcast episode “Hard Words: Why aren’t kids being taught to read?” won the inaugural public service award from EWA.

This program was recorded in front a live audience at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis on September 12, 2023.

Learn more about the Westminster Town Hall Forum at our website: www.WestminsterForum.org

Samuel G. Freedman, author of "Into the Bright Sunshine: A Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights." He spoke with Forum director Tane Danger at a special Westminster Town Hall Forum recorded at the Minnesota State Fair.

They discussed the former Vice President's upbringing in South Dakota, what Minneapolis was like in the early 1900s, and why Humphrey's speech at the 1948 Democratic National Convention on civil rights still matters today.

The program was recorded in front of a live audience at the Minnesota State Fair on August 30, 2023.

Learn more about the Westminster Town Hall Forum at our website: www.WestminsterForum.org

Former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch speaking on life as a diplomat, the Russian war in Ukraine, and the political smear campaign against her by then-President Trump and his allies. She is the author of the best-selling memoir, "Lessons from the Edge."

Yovanovitch served for more than 30 years in the US State Department under both Republican and Democratic presidents. She did tours in Somalia, Russia, and the U.K. She served as US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and eventually Ukraine from 2016–2019. Her service there was cut short by a politically-motivated campaign against her pushed by allies of then President Donald Trump and ultimately the President himself. These events contributed to President Trump's first impeachment, at which Ambassador Yavonovitch testified.

This is a special podcast-only edition of the Westminster Town Hall Forum moderated by Forum Director Tane Danger. Ambassador Yavonovitch's visit to Minnesota was coordinated by Global Minnesota, who arranged for her conversation with the Forum. Learn more about Global Minnesota at www.GlobalMinnesota.org

Learn more about the Westminster Town Hall Forum and see more of our programs at www.WestminsterForum.org