Today, the White House announced that President Barack Obama will deliver the keynote address at a Civil Rights Summit at the LBJ Presidential Library on The University of Texas at Austin campus Thursday, April 10, 2014. First Lady Michelle Obama will attend the summit with the president.
The three-day Civil Rights Summit commemorates the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law, along with the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act in 1968, helped establish the legal foundation in fulfilling the long elusive promise of equality among all Americans. The summit will not only celebrate those pivotal laws, but, just as LBJ would have wanted, will address the civil rights issues we face today in America and around the world.
“We are truly honored to host President Obama as the keynote speaker at the LBJ Presidential Library’s Civil Rights Summit in April,” said Mark K. Updegrove, Library director. “The world has evolved considerably in the half century that has passed since the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. As our first African American President, Barack Obama is the fulfillment of the promise of the Civil Rights legislation delivered by President Johnson and a bipartisan Congress.”
President Obama will be joined by three former presidents who will also deliver remarks at the Civil Rights Summit: Jimmy Carter will speak April 8; Bill Clinton will speak April 9; and George W. Bush will speak on the evening of April 10.
The Civil Rights Summit is this year’s cornerstone event of a multiyear anniversary celebration of President Johnson’s prodigious legislative legacy. Throughout the course of the next several years, the LBJ Presidential Library, the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the LBJ Foundation will partner to commemorate the anniversaries of seminal laws signed by President Johnson that continue to resonate today.
Information on the summit may be found at www.civilrightssummit.org.
AV Media Kit may be found at www.civilrightssummit.org/media.