The documentary film ‘Stewart Udall and the Politics of Beauty’ will be shown at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Apr. 11 in the auditorium of the Edith Bowen Elementary School on the campus of Utah State University.
LOGAN – The Janet Quinney Lawson Institute for Land, Water, and Air at Utah State University is sponsoring a screening of the documentary film Stewart Udall and the Politics of Beauty, at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 11.
The film by noted documentarian John DeGraff will be presented in the Edith Bowen Laboratory School Auditorium.
The event is free and open to the public, according to USU professor Ross Peterson.
Although DeGraff is best known for Affluenza, a film about the pursuit of wealth, his varied interests have resulted in a huge body of documentary work.
Stewart Udall and the Politics of Beauty captures the inspiring story of former Interior Secretary Stewart L. Udall (1920-2010) and his legacy as an advocate of social and environmental justice; international cooperation; art, poetry and music; and the protection of our shared environment and magnificent natural beauty.
“In our angry, polarized time, Americans are looking for positive inspiration,” DeGraff says. “The story of Stewart Udall brings audiences such inspiration and more. No American political figure is as relevant to the issues we face today as a nation.”
The documentarian describes Udall as the “most prominent and effective Secretary of the Interior in American history,” but that covers only a small portion of Udall’s political career.
Udall was a native of Arizona, an LDS missionary, a college basketball player at the University of Arizona and a veteran of World War II.
After creating a successful law practice, he served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before being appointed Secretary of the Interior by President John Kennedy in 1960.
Under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Udall influenced Congress to pass the Wilderness and the Wild and Scenic River acts; approve four new national parks; and complete water projects in central portions of Utah and Arizona.
During his tenure as secretary of the interior, the concepts of preservation of national seashores and national recreation areas were also established.
After leaving public life, Udall became an environmental activist and succeed in obtaining federal compensation for the families of Navajo downwinders, uranium miners and nuclear millworkers whose family members suffered from cancer.
Years prior to Al Gore’s notoriety, Udall was the first public official to speak out against global warming.
DeGraef says that Stewart Udall and the Politics of Beauty particularly focuses on the period of the 1960s and 1970s when the environmental movement in America came of age and showcases both the victories and defeats with which Udall was intimately connected.
The screening event will begin with a reception and light refreshments followed by the film starting at 6:30.