Coming to PBS tonight, Tuesday, August 4: JFK & LBJ: A TIME FOR GREATNESS
Alastair Layzell’s re-examination of the civil rights legacy of Lyndon Baines Johnson debuted at the Annapolis Film Festival this Spring. It now makes it broadcast debut in commemoration of the 59th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Despite its title, Layzell’s film is overwhelmingly focused on Johnson, though the impact – and political opportunity – of Kennedy’s death is noted several times. Designed as a corrective of sorts to the 36th US President’s legacy, marred for many by his role in escalating the Vietnam War, the film instead focuses exclusively on Johnson’s political wherewithal to realize two instrumental pieces of civil rights legislation in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination – the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – working against expectations given his Southern background, and using his powers of political negotiation, shrewd management of public outrage not only to JFK’s murder but to televised scenes of segregationist brutality in the south, and pointed personal signals that civil rights’ time had come – such as hiring Geraldine Whittington and the first African American secretary to the President, de facto desegregating a Texan whites-only club by insisting that Whittington accompany him, and incorporating the civil rights activism phrase “we shall overcome” into a televised speech before a joint session of Congress. The film is weakened significantly by the decision to employ thoroughly unnecessary scripted re-enactments at times, but otherwise succeeds in conveying LBJ’s significance in bringing change to racial inequality in America, and reminding viewers of the ongoing struggles against renewed voting suppression efforts in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling invalidating a key part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
what (not) to doc 