Program date: Feb 17, 2022
Speakers: Bob Gomel, Peniel Joseph, Mark Updegrove, and Don Carleton
The Briscoe Center and the LBJ Presidential Library presented this discussion on Feb. 15, 2022, featuring renowned photographer Bob Gomel, historian Peniel Joseph, Mark Updegrove, and Don Carleton. The online event was presented in conjunction with the Briscoe Center’s exhibit “One Night in Miami”: From Photo to Film, on display at the LBJ Presidential Library. After his victory over Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship on Feb. 25, 1964, Muhammad Ali celebrated at the Hampton House, a motel and diner in Miami that served as a gathering place for Black entertainers and celebrities. The evening inspired Kemp Powers’s 2013 play, “One Night in Miami,” which was adapted into Regina King’s Academy Award-nominated 2020 movie. Key scenes in the movie were inspired by iconic photos taken by Bob Gomel and Flip Schulke, famed photojournalists whose archives are housed at the Briscoe Center. These photos—Gomel’s photographs of Malcolm X and Ali in the Hampton House diner, and Schulke’s underwater photos of Ali—were the focus of the event.
