Join us for an evening of film and conversation inspired by Jim Hodges’s installation With Liberty and Justice for All (A Work in Progress). A screening of the 2016 documentary What the Hell Is the Presidency For?: LBJ’s Battle for Civil Rights considers the legacies of Lyndon Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and how the important civil rights legislation of the 1960s still affects Americans today.
Following the film, Mark K. Updegrove, Director of the LBJ Presidential Library, offers thoughts on LBJ’s presidency and social justice issues that continue to resonate today.
Co-presented by the LBJ Presidential Library.
Picnics are welcome!
Since October 2009, Mark K. Updegrove has served as the fourth director of the LBJ Presidential Library. During his tenure at the library, he hosted the Civil Rights Summit in 2014, which featured Barack and Michelle Obama, George W. and Laura Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter, and the Vietnam War Summit in 2016, which included John Kerry and Henry Kissinger. He also oversaw the renovation of the library’s core exhibits on President Johnson and his administration.
Updegrove has authored four books: Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House (2006), Baptism by Fire: Eight Presidents Who Took Office During Times of Crisis (2009), Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency (2012), and Destiny of Democracy: The Civil Rights Summit at the LBJ Presidential Library (2015). His next book, The Last Republicans: George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush—the Boundaries of Love and the Limits of Power, will be published by HarperCollins in November 2017. He has conducted exclusive interviews with five U.S. presidents.
Updegrove has also written for American Heritage, The Nation, National Geographic, Parade, Politico, Texas Monthly, The Daily Beast, The New York Times, and Time and is a contributor to ABC News on matters relating to the presidency and a contributor to CBS Sunday Morning.
Earlier in his career, Updegrove served as manager of Time in Los Angeles, president of TimeCanada, Time‘s Canadian edition and operation, and publisher of Newsweek in New York.