The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality - Softcover

Bryant, Nick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465008275 ISBN 13: 9780465008278

Publisher: Basic Books, 2007

Synopsis

In this, the first comprehensive history of Kennedy's civil rights record over the course of his entire political career, Nick Bryant shows that Kennedy's shrewd handling of the race issue in his early congressional campaigns blinded him as President to the intractability of the simmering racial crisis in America. By focusing on mainly symbolic gestures, Kennedy missed crucial opportunities to confront the obstructionist Southern bloc and to enact genuine reform, his inertia emboldening white supremacists and forced black activists to adopt increasingly militant tactics.

About this title

About the Author

Nick Bryant holds a Ph.D. from Oxford University. From 1998 to 2003, he was Washington correspondent for the BBC; he is currently the BBC's Australia correspondent, based in Sydney. He has written for numerous London newspapers, including The Times, The Independent, and the Daily Mail. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

From Publishers Weekly

In this critical look at Kennedy's handling of the civil rights struggle, Bryant, a former BBC Washington correspondent, provides a riveting but flawed read. From Kennedy's first campaign for Congress, when he targeted black voters, to his last days wooing Southern moderates in Texas, this narrowly focused book depicts Kennedy as a "minimalist" whose "sometimes cynical, sometimes sincere" manipulation of black opinion gave him a false sense of accomplishment. It shows how Kennedy swerved from rapprochement with segregationist Democrats during his failed bid for the vice-presidency in 1956 to the liberal vanguard during his run for president. Bryant claims that until halfway through his presidency, Kennedy viewed the race problem with "cool detachment," worrying mainly that the Soviet Union would cast the U.S. as weak on human rights. His taste for "piecemeal reform" might have worked with the wider public, Bryant argues, but it emboldened both white and black militants, and his call for legislation to speed up school desegregation came too late. By the time he was assassinated, Kennedy had "abdicated his responsibility to lead the great social revolution of his age," Bryant asserts. While that may be true, this well-written book fails to consider the immense distractions of the other historic struggle that Kennedy faced: the Cold War, at its height. (June)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0465008275
• ISBN 13: 9780465008278
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 576