Salado Museum Hosts Screening of SHAKING IT UP: THE LIFE & TIMES OF
LIZ CARPENTER May 5 at The Beltonian Theatre
Award-Winning Documentary Celebrates Legacy & Life of Salado Native, Key Aide to President Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson, Trailblazing Journalist, Women’s Rights Activist, Humorist, and Texas Icon
WHAT: On May 5, 2025, the Salado Museum will host a special “director’s cut” screening of SHAKING IT UP: THE LIFE & TIMES OF LIZ CARPENTER along with a chance for guests to ask questions and hear from co-producer/co-director Christy Carpenter after the screening at The Beltonian Theatre.
Liz Carpenter (1920-2010) experienced and helped shape some of the most vivid moments and movements of the 20th century – including her extensive behind-the-scenes work as chief of staff and press secretary to First Lady Johnson – when she orchestrated and strategized Lady Bird’s groundbreaking, grassroots promotion of LBJ’s Great Society, including the War on Poverty and environmental programs. After her White House years, Liz co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus and actively campaigned for women candidates around the country. Additionally, as co-chair of
ERAmerica, she led the battle for State ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Liz was a native of Salado and was born at the historic Robertson Plantation home, built by her great-great grandfather in the early 1850s. In her twenties, the small-town-Texan- turned-Washington, DC transplant earned a reputation as a savvy, dogged political reporter and her byline quickly spread to more than a dozen newspapers, leading to the creation of the Carpenter News Bureau in the nation’s capital with her reporter husband, Leslie. When she was 34, Carpenter was elected president of the Women’s National Press Club, a platform she used to erode barriers to participation in the men-only National Press Club (NPC), the foremost journalistic organization in Washington, DC. There she fought on behalf of women journalists to gain access to newsmaker events at the NPC. After LBJ was elected in 1960, Carpenter became the highest-ranking woman to work for a vice president until that time. A few years later, Carpenter was the key mastermind of Lady Bird’s unprecedented Whistlestop campaign tour through the South during the 1964 presidential campaign as well an orchestrating some 47 trips for the
First Lady to promote Great Society programs. Carpenter’s talents for generating strong public interest and media attention through creative, out-of-the-box strategies earned her the nickname of “the P.T. Barnum of the White House.”
Shaking It Up: The Life & Times of Liz Carpenter recounts Carpenter’s powerful story through new, candid interviews with LBJ’s daughters, Luci Baines Johnson and Lynda Johnson Robb; feminist leader Gloria Steinem; legendary journalists Dan Rather and Bill Moyers; presidential historian Douglas Brinkley; and the late U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson. The film features never-seen home movies, photos, interview clips of
her on Meet the Press, The Today Show and The David Frost Show, and rarely-shown artifacts, including Carpenter’s initial handwritten draft of LBJ’s first remarks given as President in the immediate aftermath of JFK’s death, which she referred to as “probably the most important 58 words I ever wrote.”
The documentary, which received special recognition at film festivals in 2024, kicking off with its world premiere at SXSW Film & TV Festival last March. The film was named Best Feature Documentary at the Hill Country Film Festival and Best Biographical Film at the Toronto International Women Film Festival. It was an official selection at SXSW Film Festival, Hill Country Film Festival, Toronto International Women Film Festival, DOC NYC, Virginia Film Festival, Dallas International Film Festival, DC/DOX Film Festival, DocLands, Woods Hole Film Festival, and it was featured by the Sebastopol Film Festival in late March.
WHEN: Monday, May 5, 2025 | (4:30 p.m. Media Access at Reception at The Salado Museum)
6:30 p.m. Public Screening | 7:30 p.m. Q&A
WHO: Christy Carpenter, Co-Director and Co-Producer, daughter of Liz Carpenter
WHERE: The Beltonian Theatre | 219 East Central Ave., Belton, TX 76513
TICKETS: In person, suggested $10 donation
About Liz Carpenter Film Partners:
Founded by film co-directors and co-producers Christy Carpenter and Abby Ginzberg, Liz Carpenter Film Partners was created for the purpose of developing the documentary film Shaking It Up: The Life & Times of Liz Carpenter. The collaboration brought together two passionate minds with unique skillsets to tell the story. Christy Carpenter is the daughter of Liz Carpenter and has devoted several years to reviewing the
voluminous papers, oral histories, and video materials of her pack-rat mother augmenting her own personal memories. Her very deep knowledge of her mother’s life, friends, and former colleagues as well as her media savvy and passion for history offered an exceptional resource for this film. Abby Ginzberg, a Peabody award-winning director and EMMY® Silver Circle inductee has been producing compelling
documentaries about race and social justice for over 35 years. Honored with induction into the Silver Circle of the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) in recognition of her 25 years of commitment to the film and TV community, Abby has created an impressive portfolio of award-winning films. Her film, Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth to Power, won the 2022 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding
Documentary and is available on Amazon Prime. To learn more, visit lizcarpenterfilm.com.