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For Negroes, whom he considered inherently “dirty,” there were further measures. Buses needed permits to enter state parks; buses chartered by Negro groups found it very difficult to obtain permits, particularly to Moses’ beloved Jones Beach; most were shunted to parks many miles further out on Long Island. And even in these parks, buses carrying
... See moreRobert A. Caro • The Power Broker
Opinion | When desegregation came to Harlan County, Ky.: An oral history
washingtonpost.comWhy was the EPA willing to move on Flint and not in Washington County? The difference was public versus private water. If there had been forty houses below that leaking pond, and if Stacey, Beth, and Buzz relied on public water, which, unlike their private wells, was subject to regulation, then they’d have a winning criminal case.
Eliza Griswold • Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America
Therein lies a lesson: If sufficiently developed and organized, public sentiment, as manifested in Congress, can prevail over presidential intransigence. Lincoln offered a case study in the leadership of hope and progress; Andrew Johnson’s is an unhappier story of willfulness and single-minded service to a favored constituency—in this case, to
... See moreJon Meacham • The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels
is not clear whether Blanc ever achieved such uniformity himself. If so, it would have been on a limited basis in small production lots. He did not use machinery, but rather promoted hand-shaping and filing parts with the aid of precise dies and jigs, or molds, which he may have learned from Swedish clock makers.) Jefferson pressed Blanc’s methods
... See moreCharles R. Morris • The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy
The Great Demographic Illusion: Majority, Minority, and the Expanding American Mainstream
amazon.com
“You know,” Russell said, “we could have beaten John Kennedy on civil rights, but not Lyndon Johnson.” There was a pause. A man was perhaps contemplating the end of a way of life he cherished. He was perhaps contemplating the fact that he had played a large role—perhaps the largest role—in raising to power the man who was going to end that way of
... See moreRobert A. Caro • The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV
Hill even plowed $25,000 into the faltering New York Times. All across the GN empire, Jim Hill’s private car became a landmark, frequently only a mythical landmark, pulled up on sidings from Fargo to Olympia, Washington—there to dictate policy regarding rail regulation and other pressing issues. He was becoming a legend in his own time, an ogre to
... See moreMichael P. Malone • James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest (The Oklahoma Western Biographies Book 12)
on the former territory no white laborers can be found, for they would be afraid of assimilating themselves to the negroes; on the latter no one is idle, for the white population extends its activity and its intelligence to every kind of employment.