The definitive account of JFK's engagement with the race issue - from his first campaign in Boston through his presidency - reveals that political cynicism caused Kennedy to neglect racial opportunities to defuse the most explosive domestic crisis of his era. "The Bystander" offers the most complete account to date of Kennedy's engagement with the cause of civil rights, from his first campaign for public office in 1946 until his death in 1963. Tracing, in narrative form, the complete scope of Kennedy's political career, ...
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The definitive account of JFK's engagement with the race issue - from his first campaign in Boston through his presidency - reveals that political cynicism caused Kennedy to neglect racial opportunities to defuse the most explosive domestic crisis of his era. "The Bystander" offers the most complete account to date of Kennedy's engagement with the cause of civil rights, from his first campaign for public office in 1946 until his death in 1963. Tracing, in narrative form, the complete scope of Kennedy's political career, Bryant demonstrates that his adroit, cynical and at times brilliant handling of the race issue partly explained not just his rise to become the Democratic presidential nominee, but his victory over Richard Nixon in 1960. Bryant goes on to argue that Kennedy's mishandling of the issue thereafter encouraged die-hard white supremacists to believe they could go on defending segregation well into the 1960's, which, in turn, impelled black activists to adopt increasingly militant tactics - leading inexorably to some of the most climactic and divisive battles of the civil rights era. The first book in over three decades to examine Kennedy's record on civil rights, this is also the most comprehensive, and the first to explore in any detail Kennedy's significant engagement with this issue during the first fourteen years of his political career. The book is based on a welter of new documentary material, from Kennedy's first ever 'civil rights plank' in his 1946 campaign for Congress, to his first set-piece speech on the subject (which survives as a ragged, hand-written document). Bryant has conducted numerous interviews with former associates and administration officials, many of whom have never been consulted before.
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Seller's Description:
Good in good dust jacket. Ex-library. Ex-library (college) with usual markings. Appears little used. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 545 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade.
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Good-Bumped and creased book with tears to the extremities, but not affecting the text block, may have remainder mark or previous owner's name-GOOD Standard-sized.
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Phil Goodman (author photograph) Very good in Very good jacket. viii, 545, [7] pages. Abbreviations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Publisher's ephemera laid in. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Nick Bryant was born in Bristol, England, and works in Australia for the BBC as one of its most trusted and senior foreign correspondents. He is a regular contributor to several Australian magazines and newspapers, including The Australian, The Spectator, The Monthly and The Australian Literary Review. Nick studied history at Cambridge and has a doctorate in American politics from Oxford. Nick Bryant has recently been appointed as a BBC South Asia correspondent based in Delhi. Prior to this he was the BBC Washington correspondent from 1999. He joined the BBC news trainee scheme in 1994 after writing for the Independent, the Daily Mail and the Times newspapers. A year later Nick was a reporter on BBC Radio Five Live and reported from various countries on stories such as the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Derived from a Kirkus review: JFK turns out to have been indifferent to the question of civil rights for black Americans. Kennedy was not so much bigoted as he was opportunistic; he needed the Southern Democrats in order to advance his political ambitions, and while in Congress he played to them so much that throughout the '50s he was praised in Deep South newspapers as an ally of segregation. The very suggestion seems anathema, but it certainly explains Kennedy's actions in helping denature the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Shocking, too, is Kennedy's alliance with white-supremacist politician John Patterson. Kennedy admired Martin Luther King Jr., but mostly for his rhetorical skills; King, in turn, thought Kennedy not a bad man but in need of much guidance. The Birmingham strike of 1963, with Sheriff Bull Connor's setting attack dogs on black demonstrators, finally turned Kennedy. But before Connor did so, only four percent of Americans thought civil rights was the country's most urgent issue, while 52 percent thought so afterward.
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Fine Hardcover in a Fine Dust Jacket. A New Giftable Book. No Flaws or Blemishes; Gift Quality. 8vo; 9.5 inches tall; 545 pages with Chapter Notes, Bibliography and Index. Illustrated with b/w photos. First Edition, First Printing. By focusing on purely symbolic gestures, Kennedy missed crucial opportunities to confront the obstructionist Southern bloc and to enact genuine reform. Kennedy's inertia emboldened white supremacists, and forced discouraged black activists to adopt increasingly militant tactics. At the outset of his presidency, Kennedy squandered the chance to forge a national consensus on race. For many of his thousand days in office, he remained a bystander as the civil rights battle flared in the streets of America. In the final months of his life, Kennedy could no longer control the rage he had fueled with his erratic handling of this explosive issue.
