A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights RevolutionSimon and Schuster, 4 de set. 2007 - 368 pàgines Fifty years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce a federal court order desegregating the city's Central High School, a leading authority on Eisenhower presents an original and engrossing narrative that places Ike and his civil rights policies in dramatically new light. Historians such as Stephen Ambrose and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., have portrayed Eisenhower as aloof, if not outwardly hostile, to the plight of African-Americans in the 1950s. It is still widely assumed that he opposed the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision mandating the desegregation of public schools, that he deeply regretted appointing Earl Warren as the Court's chief justice because of his role in molding Brown, that he was a bystander in Congress's passage of the civil rights acts of 1957 and 1960, and that he so mishandled the Little Rock crisis that he was forced to dispatch troops to rescue a failed policy. In this sweeping narrative, David A. Nichols demonstrates that these assumptions are wrong. Drawing on archival documents neglected by biographers and scholars, including thousands of pages newly available from the Eisenhower Presidential Library, Nichols takes us inside the Oval Office to look over Ike's shoulder as he worked behind the scenes, prior to Brown, to desegregate the District of Columbia and complete the desegregation of the armed forces. We watch as Eisenhower, assisted by his close collaborator, Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr., sifted through candidates for federal judgeships and appointed five pro-civil rights justices to the Supreme Court and progressive judges to lower courts. We witness Eisenhower crafting civil rights legislation, deftly building a congressional coalition that passed the first civil rights act in eighty-two years, and maneuvering to avoid a showdown with Orval Faubus, the governor of Arkansas, over desegregation of Little Rock's Central High. Nichols demonstrates that Eisenhower, though he was a product of his time and its backward racial attitudes, was actually more progressive on civil rights in the 1950s than his predecessor, Harry Truman, and his successors, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Eisenhower was more a man of deeds than of words and preferred quiet action over grandstanding. His cautious public rhetoric -- especially his legalistic response to Brown -- gave a misleading impression that he was not committed to the cause of civil rights. In fact, Eisenhower's actions laid the legal and political groundwork for the more familiar breakthroughs in civil rights achieved in the 1960s. Fair, judicious, and exhaustively researched, A Matter of Justice is the definitive book on Eisenhower's civil rights policies that every presidential historian and future biographer of Ike will have to contend with. |
Continguts
| 1 | |
chapter two invoking federal Authority | 23 |
chapter three the President and Brown | 51 |
chapter four AJudiciary to enforce Brown | 75 |
chapter five the President and the chief Justice | 91 |
chapter six confronting southern resistance | 111 |
chapter seven the civil rights Act of 1957 | 143 |
chapter eight the little rock crisis | 169 |
chapter nine Military intervention in little rock | 189 |
chapter ten rising expectations | 214 |
chapter eleven the final Act | 235 |
chapter twelve leading from Gettysburg | 264 |
conclusion A Matter of Justice | 273 |
Altres edicions - Mostra-ho tot
A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution David A. Nichols Visualització de fragments - 2008 |
A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution David Allen Nichols Previsualització no disponible - 2007 |
Frases i termes més freqüents
action AcW Diary Adam clayton Powell Administration administration’s Advising Ike African-American Afro-American Anthony lewis appointment Arkansas armed forces asked attorney Brown Brownell’s Byrnes called cf/Gf cf/of chief justice civil rights bill civil rights legislation committee conference congress constitution court order DDe Diary DDEP Democratic desegregation discrimination Dwight earl Warren eastland eisen eisenhower and Brownell eisenhower’s enforce ernest Wilkins federal court fePc frederic Morrow hagerty Papers herbert Brownell hower humphrey ike’s integration interview issue Judge July June Justice Department leadership legislative leaders Meeting little rock lyndon Johnson March Max rabb ment military NAAcP Negro Nixon nomination political Powell president president’s Press proposal racial republican response richard russell rogers roy Wilkins russell school desegregation secretary segregation segregationists senate sept september sherman Adams southern statement supreme court tion troops truman Washington Post White house wrote York