Presidential Leadership and African Americans : "An American Dilemma" from Slavery to the White House

Name: Presidential Leadership and African Americans:"An American Dilemma" from Slavery to the White House
Author: George R. Goethals
ISBN: 9781315747620

doi:10.4324/9781315747620

Book

Presidential Leadership and African Americans

ABSTRACT

Presidential Leadership and African Americans examines the leadership styles of eight American presidents and shows how the decisions made by each affected the lives and opportunities of the nation’s black citizens. Beginning with George Washington and concluding with the landmark election of Barack Obama, Goethals traces the evolving attitudes and morality that influenced the actions of each president on matters of race, and shows how their personal backgrounds as well as their individual historical, economic, and cultural contexts combined to shape their values, judgments, and decisions, and ultimately their leadership, regarding African Americans.

Ulysses S. Grant In an 1870 message to Congress, praising the recently ratified Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, barring the denial of voting rights on the grounds of race: “A measure of grander importance than any other one act of the kind from the foundation of our free government to the present day.”

chapter 5|24 pages

Theodore Roosevelt In a 1912 letter justifying “lily white” Southern delegations to the Progressive Party convention: “I earnestly believe that by appealing to the best white men in the South . . . and by frankly putting the movement in their hands . . . the colored men of the South will ultimately get justice.”

chapter 6|22 pages

Woodrow Wilson In a 1914 meeting with an African American leader, justifying segregation in his administration: “It takes the world generations to outlive all its prejudices.”

chapter 7|24 pages

Harry S. Truman In his charge to the newly established presidential committee on civil rights: “I want our Bill of Rights implemented in fact. We have been trying to do this for 150 years. We are making progress, but we are not making progress fast enough.”

chapter 8|22 pages

Lyndon B. Johnson In a 1965 speech on voting rights: “[B]ut really it is all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”

Presidential Leadership and African Americans

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

chapter |10 pages

Introduction: Presidential Leadership and the American Dilemma: Psychological Dimensions

chapter 1|24 pages

George Washington In freeing his slaves in his will: “I . . . most solemnly enjoin it upon my Executors . . . to see that this clause respecting Slaves . . . be religiously fulfilled . . . without evasion, neglect or delay.”

chapter 2|20 pages

Thomas Jefferson In an 1820 letter about slavery: “ We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.”

chapter 3|26 pages

Abraham Lincoln In concluding the Emancipation Proclamation: “And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice . . . I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”

chapter 4|24 pages