This week I speak with Mike Farrell, best known as "Captain B.J. Hunnicutt", one of the stars of the hit TV show "M*A*S*H" in the 1970's, and later "Providence". He is also a writer, director and producer of TV films and has also appeared in several movies, and many, many other television roles. For three years he served as first vice president of the Screen Actors Guild, and as a member of the Guild’s national board of directors.

During our conversation, I am constantly impressed by his openheartedness and humanity.

I met Mike in 1990, protesting US military aid to El Salvador.

Mike is President of Death Penalty Focus, Co-Chair Emeritus of Human Rights Watch in California, and serves as spokesperson for Concern America, a refugee relief and development organization. He has traveled the globe for the last 40 years with international peace and human rights delegations.

In his work to stop the US wars in Iraq, he co-founded Artists United to Win Without War. A life-long opponent of the death penalty, he has led Death Penalty Focus for 37 years, since 1988, and speaks, debates, writes and campaigns across the country in opposition to state killing.

He helped lead the 2021 campaign to abolish the death penalty in California, which can only happen by a statewide vote, and came within 2% of succeeding. Their 2016 proposition just barely lost too.

He is the author of a great memoir which I recommend called, “Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist.”

We talk about his beginnings at the Manhattan Project, a halfway house, and his work at Operation Bootstrap in LA.

He tells us about his TV debates with Anita Bryant about gay rights, and his work in El Salvador when the bishops were assassinated and the camps he visited at the Thai-Cambodian border during the reign of Khmer Rouge.

He also recounts many of his life changing experiences from when he first visited Death Row in Tennessee in 1975 to his involvement with Death Penalty Focus.

Mike is still hopeful about abolishing the death penalty, and how the youth in this country are becoming more aware and becoming activists.

When asked about his personal faith, he shares the three things that all human beings want and need: listen to this incredibly personal and openhearted conversation and learn from this amazing actor, activist and human being!

More episodes, zooms and information: beatitudescenter.org

Death Penalty Focus: https://deathpenalty.org

More information on the nonviolent Jesus can also be found on https://fatherjohndear.substack.com/