An Evening With Cokie Roberts, 6 p.m., Monday, April 26, 2004, LBJ Auditorium
"Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation"
Note: This event is free for Friends of the LBJ Library. There are a limited number of seats that may be available to those who are not members. For more information, or if you would like to become a member of the Friends of the LBJ Library, call Larry Reed at (512)478-7829, ext. 296.
Cokie Roberts, the well known radio and television commentator, is also a writer-and we're lucky to have her with us to talk about her latest book.
Founding Mothers uses diaries and correspondence to bring to life such historic figures as Martha Washington and Abigail Adams, as well as lesser known figures such as Catherine Littlefield Greene and Deborah Read Franklin.
Publishers Weekly writes about Founding Mothers, "In addition to telling wonderful stories, Roberts also presents a very readable, serviceable account of politics 'male and female' in early America. If only our standard history textbooks were written with such flair!"
Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News where for fifteen years she has covered Congress, politics, and public policy. From 1996-2002, she and Sam Donaldson co-anchored the weekly ABC interview program, This Week. In addition, Roberts is a senior news analyst for National Public Radio, where she was the congressional correspondent for more than 10 years.
During her more than thirty years in broadcasting, Roberts has won numerous awards, including two Emmys. She has been inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame, and was cited by the American Women in Radio and Television as one of the fifty greatest women in the history of broadcasting.
While working for NPR, Roberts won numerous awards, including the highest honor in public radio, the Edward R. Murrow Award. She also was the first broadcast journalist to win the prestigious Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for coverage of Congress.
Along with her husband, Roberts writes a weekly syndicated column that appears in newspapers around the country. Together, Steve and Cokie Roberts wrote From This Day Forward, an account of their more than thirty-five year marriage and other marriages in American history.
The book immediately went onto The New York Times bestseller list, following a run of half a year on the list by her other book, We Are Our Mothers' Daughters.
Roberts is the daughter of two members of Congress: Hale Boggs, the Louisiana congressman who died in a 1972 plane crash in Alaska, and Lindy Boggs, who also has served as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
Cokie Roberts will be signing copies of Founding Mothers from 5:15 to 5:45 p.m. in the Lobby of the LBJ Auditorium prior to her address. The Museum Store will be selling copies of Founding Mothers at that time. The store is a division of the LBJ Foundation and all proceeds support the mission of the library.
A reception will follow in the LBJ Library's Great Hall.