Non-Fiction: Lady Bird Johnson’s Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train

Lectures and conversations with historians, authors, and thinkers.

In October 1964, Lady Bird Johnson made history as the first presidential spouse to take a leading role on the campaign trail—and she did it boldly, facing danger and shaking up the status quo. Aboard a custom, nineteen-car train called the Lady Bird Special, she traversed eight Southern states to support Lyndon B. Johnson’s re-election bid amid heightened tensions following the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Author Shannon McKenna Schmidt recounts this daring 1,682-mile journey, highlighting Lady Bird’s courageous leadership, the women who helped make this monumental undertaking possible, and how their strategy and civility impacted a pivotal moment in American history.

Shannon McKenna Schmidt is the author of You Can’t Catch Us: Lady Bird Johnson’s Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode with Her. Her other books include The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt’s Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back, which she previously presented at the Bryant Park Reading Room.