Friends of the LBJ Library | Apr, 30 2024 6:30PM - 8:00PM
April 30, 6:30 p.m.
10th floor Atrium, LBJ Library
Friends members, join us for a preview of a new AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film, The Riot Report, about the racial unrest in the summer of 1967. The film explores this pivotal moment in our nation’s history and grapples with the persistent racial inequality in American life.
Following a 40-minute preview of the film, filmmakers Michelle Ferrari, Jelani Cobb, and Cameo George will join us for a moderated conversation.
About the Film
When Black neighborhoods in scores of American cities erupted in violence during the summer of 1967, President Lyndon Johnson appointed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders––informally known as the Kerner Commission––to answer three questions: What happened? Why did it happen? And what could be done to prevent it from happening again? The commission’s final report, issued in March of 1968, would offer a shockingly unvarnished assessment of American race relations, a verdict so politically explosive that Johnson doomed its finding to political oblivion.
The film will premiere in full May 21 at 9/8c on PBS stations nationwide.
About the Speakers
Michelle Ferrari (Director/Writer/Producer) has been creating innovative, critically acclaimed documentary narratives for more than two decades. Her work as a screenwriter and story editor has been seen on PBS, HBO, and at film festivals nationwide, and has garnered honors from the Writers Guild of America, the Western Writers Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Sundance Film Festival, and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The writer of numerous American Experience films –– among them The Perfect Crime, Silicon Valley, Roads to Memphis, and Kit Carson –– Ferrari is perhaps best known for the highly rated Seabiscuit, which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing. She wrote and directed Edison, Rachel Carson, The Eugenics Crusade (2019 Writers Guild Award), and, most recently, the Peabody-nominated two-part series The Vote and Sandra Day O’Connor: The First for the series. Additional credits include the landmark PBS series Half the Sky and the Emmy-winning HBO documentary Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present. Michelle is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and holds an M.A. in American History from Columbia University.
Jelani Cobb (Writer/Co-Producer) joined the Journalism School faculty of Columbia University in 2016 and became Dean in 2022. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2015. He received a Peabody Award for his 2020 PBS Frontline film Whose Vote Counts? and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary in 2018. He has also been a political analyst for MSNBC since 2019. He is the author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress and To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic. He is the editor or co-editor of several volumes including The Matter of Black Lives, a collection of The New Yorker’s writings on race, and The Essential Kerner Commission Report. He is producer or co-producer on a number of documentaries including Lincoln’s Dilemma, Obama: A More Perfect Union and Policing the Police. Dr. Cobb was educated at Jamaica High School in Queens, NY, Howard University, where he earned a B.A. in English, and Rutgers University, where he completed his MA and doctorate in American History in 2003. He is also a recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation and the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Journalism Project and was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2023.
Cameo George (Executive Producer, American Experience) is an Emmy Award-winning producer, writer and journalist with more than 20 years of experience in documentary, broadcast television and digital content production. George has produced, developed and commissioned innovative programming at CNN, NBC News, ABC News and more. She was the senior producer of CNN’s groundbreaking series Black in America and Latino in America and the executive producer of the eight-hour PBS documentary series 16 for '16: The Contenders, which was also broadcast on the BBC. George joined American Experience from ABC News, where she was Head of Development for Longform projects, responsible for creating a pipeline of docuseries and feature documentary films across Walt Disney Television platforms including ABC News, Hulu, National Geographic and Disney+.
Location and Parking
The event will be hosted in the 10th floor Atrium of the LBJ Presidential Library, 2313 Red River St. Access to Atrium will be through the main entrance of the LBJ Library.
The doors will open at 5:45 p.m. Parking details will be posted soon.
To RSVP:
This event is now at capacity. Please email friends@lbjfoundation.org with any questions.
