LBJ Museum's spring lecture to discuss 'War on Poverty: 50+ Years Later'

Dr. David Zarefsky, a noted scholar in presidential rhetoric, will give the Spring Lecture on “President Johnson’s War on Poverty: The View from 50+ Years Later" on Thursday, March 5 at 6:30 p.m. at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Museum of San Marcos, 131 N. Guadalupe St.

The public is invited to attend the free event. A reception will be held at 6:30 p.m., followed by Dr. Zarefsky’s talk about the impact and current status of some of President Johnson’s signature pieces of legislation.

The lecture is sponsored by the LBJ Museum of San Marcos, The Department of Communications Studies, the Political Science Department and the Public History Program at Texas State University.

Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., Dr. Zarefsky is the author, co-author, and editor of nine books and the author of over 100 articles in books and professional journals. 

Two of his books have won the Winans-Wichelns Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address, an award of the National Communication Association (NCA): President Johnson’s War on Poverty: Rhetoric and History (University of Alabama Press, 1986) and Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery: In the Crucible of Public Debate (University of Chicago Press, 1990). 

He is one of only four individuals to have won this award twice.  In 1994, he was named to the ranks of NCA Distinguished Scholars and in 2015, he was named the Douglas Ehninger Distinguished Rhetorical Scholar.  He also has twice won the “Best Article Award” from the Southern States Communication Association.

At Northwestern, Zarefsky taught courses in the study of American public discourse, with a special focus on the pre-Civil War years and on the 1960s.  He also taught courses in argumentation theory, persuasion and public speaking. 

He received the NCA Lifetime Teaching Excellence Award in 2012.  He has held visiting appointments at the University of Pennsylvania, Penn State University, Harvard University and the University of Iowa.  Zarefsky also has two video courses, “Abraham Lincoln: In His Own Words” and “Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning,” marketed by The Teaching Company.