Description:
Focusing on the most explosive and enduring of equality 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. Only in extreme circumstances have presidents become advocates of serious reform.
Review Quotes: Challenges the received wisdom that heroic executives have advanced racial justice. . . . From Andrew Jackson to Lyndon Johnson, Russell Riley finds that presidents -even those credited with championing racial equality -often feel compelled to restrain, and at time oppress, crusaders for political and social reform.