An Evening With Nick Kotz, 6 p.m., Thursday, April 28, 2005, LBJ Auditorium
Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Laws That Changed America
Opposites in almost every way, suspicious of each other at first, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr. were thrust together in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Both men sensed an historic opportunity and began a delicate dance of accommodation that moved them and the entire nation toward the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nick Kotz draws on a wealth of newly available sources – from President Johnson's telephone conversations to FBI wiretap logs – to provide the first definitive account of the relationship between these two great leaders.
Mr. Kotz is speaking in collaboration with the Heman Sweatt Symposium, which takes place from April 25 through the 29 th and will commemorate the 40 th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. For more details, visit our website, www.lbjlib.utexas.edu.
Former President Jimmy Carter called Judgment Days “…an important examination of a critical moment in American history — a battle for our nation's soul. Kotz has given us valuable historical perspectives at a time when it is imperative that we renew the fight for a more perfect union."
As a reporter for the Des Moines Register and the Washington Post , and as a freelance writer, Kotz has won many of journalism's most important honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Washington correspondence, the Raymond Clapper Memorial Award, and the first Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award. His study of American military leadership won the National Magazine Award for public service. His book Wild Blue Yonder: Money, Politics, and the B-1 Bomber won the Olive Branch Award.
Judgment Days is Kotz's fifth book examining American history and public policy.
The LBJ Museum Store will be selling copies of Judgment Days. Mr. Kotz will be signing copies of his book from 5:15 to 5:45 p.m. in the Lobby of the LBJ Auditorium prior to his address. A reception will follow.