Hope and Hard Truth: A Life in Texas Politics

“It’s fitting that a woman whose career started by uncovering the untold stories of women who made history has become one of those women. If not for Mary Beth Rogers, you may only remember Ann Richards as the funniest teacher you’d ever met. And if not for this book, you would never understand how liberals once ran Texas. People here like to say, ‘God bless Texas.’ I say God already did, when we got Mary Beth Rogers.”

Jason Stanford

“In her sublime memoir Hope and Hard Truth, Mary Beth Rogers masterfully examines Texas politics through the highly compelling lens of her lifetime of activism and the paradigm-shifting work she did with Governor Ann Richards. Rogers’s deep dive into some of the hard truths of Texas politics remains not only astonishingly relevant today but provides precious glimmers of hope that the partisan madness currently tearing our country apart can be overcome. Her account of how she made peace with past battles offers profound insights for all of us trying to forge a more contemplative future.”

Sarah Bird

“Player. Witness. Historian. Soothsayer. Mary Beth Rogers is a wise and talented woman whose uncanny intellectual rigor is accompanied by a warmth she has paid for in full. What emerges from Hope and Hard Truth is the humanity of Rogers, and the connections among the underpinning human drives and snares and glories threading through all the stories she tells. Stories that start at home.”

Holland Taylor