By Andra Moss

A documentary highlighting the life and legacy of environmentalist and former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall will be shown on Sunday, Oct. 8, at 3 p.m., at the Norfolk Library. Director John de Graaf will introduce his film, “Stewart Udall and the Politics of Beauty,” and will participate in a discussion and Q&A following the screening.

Udall (1920-2010) grew up during the height of the Great Depression, without electricity and running water, in rural St. Johns, Arizona, a Mormon community founded by his grandfather. While serving his fourth term as an Arizona Congressman in 1961, he was appointed by John F. Kennedy as Secretary of the Interior, a position he held through the Johnson administration.

Much of the environmental legislation we now take for granted can be traced to Udall, an early architect of the modern conservation and environmental movements in the United States. A humble and unassuming man, he nonetheless provided the political leadership for a legacy that includes the Clean Air and Clean Water Restoration Acts, the Endangered Species List, the Highway Beautification Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers and National Scenic Trails Acts and the National Historic Preservation Act.

Udall was also the government’s primary advocate for the 1964 Wilderness Act, which permanently ensured that millions of acres of wild land would remain “untrammeled by man.” Under his guidance, Congress added 3.85 million acres, including four national parks and nine national recreation areas, to the public domain. Udall, crucially, also stopped plans to dam the Grand Canyon.

More than an environmentalist, Udall cared deeply about social justice issues. He used his position to reshape the Bureau of Indian Affairs to give more power to tribal organizations and forced the integration of the National Park Service—and, surprisingly, Washington’s NFL team (he refused to renew their lease in D.C. Stadium, which the Dept. of Interior controlled, unless they hired Black players.)

Activist, author and award-winning filmmaker John de Graaf first met Udall in 1990 while working on a PBS biography of environmentalist David Brower. As he learned more about Udall, de Graaf has written, he was determined to remind the world of the lasting legacy of this ultimate advocate for our shared public spaces. De Graaf will attend the Norfolk Library screening of his film and discuss the man “whose passion for the natural world,” writes one reviewer, “literally changed the landscape of this country.”