The Six Black Presidents PDF Download

Author: Auset BaKhufu
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781880187005
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Author: Clarence Lusane
Publisher: City Lights Books
ISBN: 0872866114
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 662

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The Black History of the White House presents the untold history, racial politics, and shifting significance of the White House as experienced by African Americans, from the generations of enslaved people who helped to build it or were forced to work there to its first black First Family, the Obamas. Clarence Lusane juxtaposes significant events in White House history with the ongoing struggle for democratic, civil, and human rights by black Americans and demonstrates that only during crises have presidents used their authority to advance racial justice. He describes how in 1901 the building was officially named the “White House” amidst a furious backlash against President Roosevelt for inviting Booker T. Washington to dinner, and how that same year that saw the consolidation of white power with the departure of the last black Congressmember elected after the Civil War. Lusane explores how, from its construction in 1792 to its becoming the home of the first black president, the White House has been a prism through which to view the progress and struggles of black Americans seeking full citizenship and justice. “Clarence Lusane is one of America’s most thoughtful and critical thinkers on issues of race, class and power.”—Manning Marable "Barack Obama may be the first black president in the White House, but he's far from the first black person to work in it. In this fascinating history of all the enslaved people, workers and entertainers who spent time in the president's official residence over the years, Clarence Lusane restores the White House to its true colors."—Barbara Ehrenreich "Reading The Black History of the White House shows us how much we DON'T know about our history, politics, and culture. In a very accessible and polished style, Clarence Lusane takes us inside the key national events of the American past and present. He reveals new dimensions of the black presence in the US from revolutionary days to the Obama campaign. Yes, 'black hands built the White House'—enslaved black hands—but they also built this country's economy, political system, and culture, in ways Lusane shows us in great detail. A particularly important feature of this book its personal storytelling: we see black political history through the experiences and insights of little-known participants in great American events. The detailed lives of Washington's slaves seeking freedom, or the complexities of Duke Ellington's relationships with the Truman and Eisenhower White House, show us American racism, and also black America's fierce hunger for freedom, in brand new and very exciting ways. This book would be a great addition to many courses in history, sociology, or ethnic studies courses. Highly recommended!"—Howard Winant "The White House was built with slave labor and at least six US presidents owned slaves during their time in office. With these facts, Clarence Lusane, a political science professor at American University, opens The Black History of the White House(City Lights), a fascinating story of race relations that plays out both on the domestic front and the international stage. As Lusane writes, 'The Lincoln White House resolved the issue of slavery, but not that of racism.' Along with the political calculations surrounding who gets invited to the White House are matters of musical tastes and opinionated first ladies, ingredients that make for good storytelling."—Boston Globe Dr. Clarence Lusane has published in The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, The Baltimore Sun, Oakland Tribune, Black Scholar, and Race and Class. He often appears on PBS, BET, C-SPAN, and other national media.

Author: Garry Wills
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618485376
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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In 1800 Thomas Jefferson won the presidential election with Electoral College votes derived from the three- fths representation of slaves -- slaves who could not vote but were still partially counted as citizens. Moving beyond the recent revisionist debate over Jefferson"s own slaves and his relationship with Sally Hemings, Garry Wills instead probes the heart of Jefferson"s presidency and political life, revealing how the might of the slave states remained a concern behind his most important policies and decisions. Jefferson"s foil was Thomas Pickering, who along with the Federalists fought the president and the institutions that supported him. In an eye-opening, ingeniously argued expose, Wills restores Pickering and his allies" dramatic struggle to our understanding of Jefferson, the creation of the new nation, and the evolution of our representative democracy.

Author: Annette Gordon-Reed
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429924616
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian recounts the tale of the unwanted president who ran afoul of Congress over Reconstruction and was nearly removed from office Andrew Johnson never expected to be president. But just six weeks after becoming Abraham Lincoln's vice president, the events at Ford's Theatre thrust him into the nation's highest office. Johnson faced a nearly impossible task—to succeed America's greatest chief executive, to bind the nation's wounds after the Civil War, and to work with a Congress controlled by the so-called Radical Republicans. Annette Gordon-Reed, one of America's leading historians of slavery, shows how ill-suited Johnson was for this daunting task. His vision of reconciliation abandoned the millions of former slaves (for whom he felt undisguised contempt) and antagonized congressional leaders, who tried to limit his powers and eventually impeached him. The climax of Johnson's presidency was his trial in the Senate and his acquittal by a single vote, which Gordon-Reed recounts with drama and palpable tension. Despite his victory, Johnson's term in office was a crucial missed opportunity; he failed the country at a pivotal moment, leaving America with problems that we are still trying to solve.

Author: Adrian Miller
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469632543
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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An NAACP Image Award Finalist for Outstanding Literary Work—Non Fiction James Beard award–winning author Adrian Miller vividly tells the stories of the African Americans who worked in the presidential food service as chefs, personal cooks, butlers, stewards, and servers for every First Family since George and Martha Washington. Miller brings together the names and words of more than 150 black men and women who played remarkable roles in unforgettable events in the nation's history. Daisy McAfee Bonner, for example, FDR's cook at his Warm Springs retreat, described the president's final day on earth in 1945, when he was struck down just as his lunchtime cheese souffle emerged from the oven. Sorrowfully, but with a cook's pride, she recalled, "He never ate that souffle, but it never fell until the minute he died." A treasury of information about cooking techniques and equipment, the book includes twenty recipes for which black chefs were celebrated. From Samuel Fraunces's "onions done in the Brazilian way" for George Washington to Zephyr Wright's popovers, beloved by LBJ's family, Miller highlights African Americans' contributions to our shared American foodways. Surveying the labor of enslaved people during the antebellum period and the gradual opening of employment after Emancipation, Miller highlights how food-related work slowly became professionalized and the important part African Americans played in that process. His chronicle of the daily table in the White House proclaims a fascinating new American story.

Author: Chris DeRose
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493010875
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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For the first time, readers will experience America’s gravest crisis through the eyes of the five former presidents who lived it. Author and historian Chris DeRose chronicles history’s most epic Presidential Royal Rumble, which culminated in a multi-front effort against Lincoln’s reelection bid, but not before: * John Tyler engaged in shuttle diplomacy between President Buchanan and the new Confederate Government. He chaired the Peace Convention of 1861, the last great hope for a political resolution to the crisis. When it failed, Tyler joined the Virginia Secession Convention, voted to leave the Union, and won election to the Confederate Congress. * Van Buren, who had schemed to deny Lincoln the presidency, supported him in his efforts after Fort Sumter, and thwarted Franklin Pierce's attempt at a meeting of the ex-Presidents to undermine Lincoln. * Millard Fillmore hosted Lincoln and Mary Todd on their way to Washington, initially supported the war effort, offered critical advice to keep Britain at bay, but turned on Lincoln over emancipation. * Franklin Pierce, talked about as a Democratic candidate in 1860 and ’64, was openly hostile to Lincoln and supportive of the South, an outspoken critic of Lincoln especially on civil liberties. After Vicksburg, when Jefferson Davis’s home was raided, a secret correspondence between Pierce and the Confederate President was revealed. * James Buchanan, who had left office as seven states had broken away from the Union, engaged in a frantic attempt to vindicate his administration, in part by tying himself to Lincoln and supporting the war, arguing that his successor had simply followed his policies. How Abraham Lincoln battled against his predecessors to preserve the Union and later to put an end to slavery is a thrilling tale of war waged at the top level of power.

Author: David Pietrusza
Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 568

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The presidential election of 1920 was one of the most dramatic ever. For the only time in the nation's history, six once-and-future presidents hoped to end up in the White House: Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, and Theodore Roosevelt. It was an election that saw unprecedented levels of publicity — the Republicans outspent the Democrats by 4 to 1 — and it was the first to garner extensive newspaper and newsreel coverage. It was also the first election in which women could vote. Meanwhile, the 1920 census showed that America had become an urban nation — automobiles, mass production, chain stores, and easy credit were transforming the economy and America was limbering up for the most spectacular decade of its history, the roaring '20s. Award-winning historian David Pietrusza's riveting new work presents a dazzling panorama of presidential personalities, ambitions, plots, and counterplots — a picture of modern America at the crossroads.

Author: Edward Ball
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 146689749X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Fifteen years after its hardcover debut, the FSG Classics reissue of the celebrated work of narrative nonfiction that won the National Book Award and changed the American conversation about race, with a new preface by the author The Ball family hails from South Carolina—Charleston and thereabouts. Their plantations were among the oldest and longest-standing plantations in the South. Between 1698 and 1865, close to four thousand black people were born into slavery under the Balls or were bought by them. In Slaves in the Family, Edward Ball recounts his efforts to track down and meet the descendants of his family's slaves. Part historical narrative, part oral history, part personal story of investigation and catharsis, Slaves in the Family is, in the words of Pat Conroy, "a work of breathtaking generosity and courage, a magnificent study of the complexity and strangeness and beauty of the word ‘family.'"

Author: Marfe Ferguson Delano
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1426307594
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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As the first President of the United States of America and the Commander in Chief who led a rebel army to victory in the Revolutionary War, George Washington was a legendary leader of men. He had high expectations of his soldiers, employees, and associates. At his Virginia plantation, Mount Vernon, his expectations of his workers were no different: "I expect such labor as they ought to render" he wrote. Except there was a big difference. The workers who kept Mount Vernon operating were enslaved. And although Washington called them "my people," by law they were his property. But the people of Mount Vernon were so much more, and they each have compelling stories to tell. These are fascinating portraits of cooks, overseers, valets, farm hands, and more- essential people nearly lost in the shadows of the past- interwoven with an extraordinary examination of the conscience of the Father of Our Country.

Author: Jean H. Baker
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805069464
Category : Presidents
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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1. Buchanan, James, 1791-1868 2. Presidents United States Biography 3. United States - Politics and Government - 1857-1861.