The Presidency and the Politics of Racial Inequality

by Riley, Russell

• ISBN13: 9780231107235
• ISBN10: 0231107234
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-05-01
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

From the abolition of slavery to the civil rights movement one hundred years later, one of the primary characteristics of America's development as a nation has been the steady struggle for and expansion of the horizons of citizenship. Pivotal in any equal rights movement is the response of the White House: how the president addresses any such movement profoundly affects its chances for success. Russell L. Riley examines the logic of presidential behavior with regard to equality movements. Focusing on the most explosive and enduring of such movements--the struggle for social and economic parity by African Americans--Riley argues that the president's unwritten mandate as the designated protector of domestic social order is to suppress or moderate major social change.Consequently, only in extreme circumstances have presidents become advocates of serious reform. The Presidency and the Politics of Racial Inequalitygoes beyond the triad of Lincoln, Kennedy, and Johnson with discussions of F.D.R., Truman, and Eisenhower to see how these presidents dealt with situations that forced them into the fray. Riley questions the positive role played by some presidents--and contends that their failure to suppress racial unrest has not been adequately discussed.As Riley convincingly demonstrates, American political culture made it unlikely that any president would invest executive power in a deeply controversial enterprise. His study goes far toward explaining why significant change has been slow to take hold, even in one of the most open democratic systems in the world.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	1	(22)
PART I ABOLITION	23	(96)
The Origins and Politics of Abolition	25	(18)
A Thirty Years ``War'': The Presidency and the Abolitionists	43	(50)
The Making of a Great Emancipator	93	(26)
PART II CIVIL RIGHTS	119	(156)
From Reconstruction to the Great Depression: Latency Years	121	(16)
The Rise of Black Political Power: Roosevelt and Truman	137	(38)
Race Returns to Center Stage: The Eisenhower Years	175	(26)
Emancipation, Act II: Pressures and Conversion, 1961-1965	201	(34)
The Presidency, Leadership, and the Struggle for Racial Equality	235	(40)
Notes	275	(84)
Index	359