EAN: 9780674737457

JUSTICE RISING - ROBERT KENNEDYS AMERICA IN BLA...

A leading civil rights historian places Robert Kennedy for the first time at the center of the
movement for racial justice of the 1960s--and shows how many of today's issues can be traced
back to that pivotal time. Bobby Kennedy was an unlikely civil rights hero. A cold warrior who
once worked for Joe McCarthy  he grew up in a sheltered world where segregation was the norm.
But when he became attorney general in 1961  he plunged headfirst into the politics of race. In
this landmark reconsideration of his life and legacy  Patricia Sullivan reveals how he grasped
the moment to emerge as a transformational leader at a tumultuous time. Drawing on government
files  personal papers  and oral interviews with many of those who worked with him  Justice
Rising shows how RFK used all the tools at his disposal to confront violent resistance to
desegregation across the South. He pioneered the use of federal powers to challenge voting
rights violations  intervened personally to desegregate schools  and championed criminal
justice reform. The Justice Department under Kennedy became an incubator of change  where
policy was imagined  tested  and put to work on the volatile frontier of race  crime  and the
law. When violent racial uprisings broke out in northern cities and many called for more
aggressive law enforcement  Kennedy pushed to address their root causes: entrenched poverty 
decaying housing  substandard schools  predatory policing  and a near total absence of
employment opportunities. As a presidential candidate before his tragic assassination in 1968
he sought to bridge the nation's racial divisions. Deeply researched and compellingly written 
Justice Rising offers a groundbreaking reconsideration of Robert Kennedy's role in the
culminating years of the civil rights movement and sheds new light on the battles that remain.

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