A little over a week ago, I went to see ‘
All the Way,’ the Broadway play starring Bryan Cranston as President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ). The play focused on LBJ’s first 11 months in office after President Kennedy’s assassination, showing how he grew into the role and leveraged his newfound power to pass landmark Civil Rights legislation.
I took my grandmother with me, because a friend mentioned that there was a scene in the play that focused on the 1964 murder of my great uncle (and my gma’s brother) civil rights activist James Chaney, during Mississippi’s Freedom Summer.
In addition to that scene, there were a few other somber moments in the play but it provided another perspective on an important time in this country’s history. And Bryan Cranston, fresh off of his role as Walter White in
Breaking Bad, was amazing and so was the rest of the cast.
Aside from a few minor inaccuracies in the Freedom Summer scenes (I won’t spoil it for you), the play was excellent. It was so good that it made me curious enough about LBJ’s presidency that I started doing additional research about his time in office when I left the show.
‘All the Way‘ runs through the end of May, so go see it if you can. I highly recommend it.