MALCOLM X IS HIS OWN WORDS

 

A review of The Autobiography of Malcolm X As Told To Alex Haley (1965) (1999, my copy)

(Rating 5 of 5)

                The Autobiography of Malcolm X is one of the great American political works of the 20^th century.  It is quite an intimidating to review given so much has been said about the book that it makes it difficult to try to contribute something original.  The book was assembled from a series of interviews that Malcolm X had with journalist and author Alex Haley. 

Having a professional writer, it naturally raises the question of filter or embellishment.  How much of this is this Malcolm X’s natural story or how much has been sensationalized by Haley.  Fortunately, Haley put a rather lengthy epilogue in which he explains his working relationship with Malcolm X and how this book was assembled.  In that epilogue, Haley discusses the challenges of getting his approval for chapters in which he praises Elijah Muhammad, during a time when Malcolm X’s conflict with Muhammad was at its height.  After reading the epilogue I feel with a great deal of confidence that story presented is the authentic and genuine story of Malcolm X in his own words.

Alex Haley

The story has smooth narrative that gives the reader the feeling of actually being in room with Malcolm X as he explains his life to you.  It reminds me of the narrative that the reader gets when they read The Autobiography of Ulysses S Grant.  There is something about the narrator stopping for some human moment that the reader can easily relate to.  For example, during his hustler days he came to a moment of indecision as he wondered about a task that was sure he completed but suddenly formed doubts.  He then asks the reader if they have experienced anything the same, which obnoxiously the reader cannot answer him, but it does allow them to feel a connection.     

Malcolm X begins talking about his life growing up with his parents who were followers of the Black Nationalist movement of Marcus Garvey.   His father, Earl Little, is killed by a gang of white racists known as the Black Legion.   His mother, Louise, is left as a single parent.  Eventually the pressures of being a single parent in a huge family, losing a spouse to murder, being denied the full insurance payout, and being undermined and not helped by the state caused her to have a mental breakdown that she never recovered. As a result, her children went into foster care.  Malcolm X visited her years later and she didn’t know who he was.     

“I can’t describe how I felt.  The woman who had brought me into the world, and nursed me, and advised me, and chastised me, and loved me, didn’t know me. It was as if I was trying to walk up the side of a hill of feathers.  I looked at her.  I listened to her “talk.” But there was nothing I could do.

I truly believe that if ever a state social agency destroyed a family, it destroyed ours.  We wanted and tried to stay together.  Out home didn’t have to be destroyed.  But Welfare, the courts, and their doctor gave us a one-two-three punch.  And ours was not the only case of this kind.” (pg. 22)

parents

Malcolm X does rather well in foster care.  Still going by the name Malcolm Little that he will keep until his conversion in 1950.  He attended an integrated school in the north that was primarily white.  Despite that he was really popular with his classmates and even elected class president.  It wasn’t until a conversation with his school guidance counselor that became a factor in the change of his direction in life.  When he said that he wanted to be a lawyer the man shot that down and told him using the N-word that since he was black, he had to be more realistic.  He encouraged him to try to get a job in the domestic field.  

Malcolm X as child

In many ways it’s the conversation with the guidance counselor that I find the most disturbing part of the book.  As someone who works in education it breaks my heart to see a smart promising young student have his dreams dashed without even being allowed to try.  I am still not sure how I am supposed to feel about this guidance counselor.  When discussing white people in his youth who use the N-word Malcolm X breaks them up into two categories, hateful racists and well-meaning ignorant people.  The second group is made up of people who probably wouldn’t use the N-word if they grew up in a different time period.  I am not sure about the guidance counselor.  One on hand I can understand him not wanting to mislead the student about the realities of the world into which he is entering.  Nevertheless, I feel that he still could have gone about it in a better way.  There were African-American lawyers back then; it would have been hard for him but not impossible. 

I enjoyed Malcolm X’s telling of his hustler days in New York because it was the section of the book where I learned the most.  As the reader, you got to see what the underside of New York City looked like in the 1940s.  It is interesting that the underworld was one of the most integrated places in the country.  Here the then Malcolm Little goes by the nickname “Detroit Red.”  He befriends and works as an enforcer for a number of pimps.  He participates in fencing with a fellow Black man and a couple of White women.  He has a number of different women in his life.  

The biggest thing I learned that never would have even guess existed unless a read this book was the “conk,” a type straightening method that African-American men used to alter the hairs appearance from its natural state to a more “white” look.  It was a process that was painful and could result in serious injury to the scalp.  After reading this I did go through some old pictures of African-American men in the first half of the 20^th century to see if I could spot it.   

Hustler days with "conk" hairstyle

His hustling days came to an end when he and his group of thieves were caught, tried, and sent to prison.  Now for most people going to prison would be rather bad thing, but Malcolm found himself there and would later reflect that his prison time was important part of his life.  While imprisoned he was able to get the education that he had been denied so many years ago.  He even notes at times that if he had gone to a traditional college, he may have been distracted by all that goes on in a community that a university offers.  In prison he was forced to read and he managed to give himself quite the education.  He read a lot of history and hearing of the horrors that people of his racial background went through radicalized his politics. 

“I will never forget how shocked I was when I began reading about slavery’s total horror.  It made such an impact on me that it later became one of my favorite subjects when I became a minister of Mr. Muhammad’s.   The world’s most monstrous crime, the sin and the blood on the white man’s hands, are almost impossible to believe.  Books like the one by Frederick Olmstead opened my eyes to the horrors suffered when the slave landed in the United States.  The European woman, Fannie Kimball, who had married a southern white slave owner, described how human beings were degraded.  Of course I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  In fact I believe that is the only novel I have ever read since I started serious reading.”  (p.179)

While imprison his brother Reginald introduced to him with his letters and visits the religion called the Nation of Islam.  Up into this point Malcolm X had been so openly atheist his fellow inmates nicknamed him Satan.  It is at this point where he ceases to be Malcolm Little and embraced his identity of Malcolm X.  Their leader Elijah Muhammad had his followers drop their surnames as these were just imposed on their ancestors by white slave masters. 

Elijah Muhammad

With his new religious identity, the reader can clearly see some of the good and bad that comes from religion.  It gave Malcolm X an instant community to come home to, it helped generate self-worth, and it gave him a purpose.  It also made him believe rather ridiculous things such as white people were created by a mad scientist thousands of years ago. 

Malcolm X during public career

Armed with his new faith, Malcolm X makes a lot of lifestyle changes to accommodate it such as giving up pork and cigarettes.  When he gets out of prison, he meets Elijah Muhammad and becomes a minister for the NOI.  He then embarks on the work that would make him world famous.  He would grow the NOI amongst the African-American community and in doing so challenge the white establishment that would be standing in his way.  To so would not only make enemies of white America but it would also bring him into conflict with the active civil rights leaders.       

“My decision came relatively quickly. I have always been an activist, and my personal chemistry perhaps made me reach more quickly than most minsters in the Nation of Islam that stage of dedication.  But ever minister in the Nation, in his own time, in his own way, in the privacy of his own soul, came to the conviction that is was written that all of his “before” life had become conditioning and preparation to become a disciple of Mr. Muhammad’s.” (p. 215)  

With Malcolm X as its most popular minister, the Nation of Islam experienced a swelling of its ranks.  It would multiple several times over.  However, in many ways his success would also be his undoing within the Nation.  Despite the fact that he had always presented himself as “representative of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,” Malcolm X was by far the most visible Black Muslim and this would seem to create a jealousy in Muhammad.  Malcolm X also discovered that Muhammad had several sexual indiscretions fathering illegitimate children with former secretaries.  When Malcolm X gave his infamous “chickens come home to roust” remarks in the wake of the Kennedy assignation, Muhammad took the opportunity to silence him. 

This however ultimately just pushed him away.  After being contacted by more mainstream Muslims he starts to re-examine his own faith.  With that he leaves the NOI and becomes a Sunni Muslim.  With help of his sister, Ella^[1], he goes on a pilgrimage to Mecca required by all Muslims who are able.  There he refines a lot of his political views.  Where before he advocated for Black separation and supremacy, he now advocated for a universal brotherhood.  He never stopped attacking white supremacy for what it was though and would continue calls for a strong revolutionary change.  He adopted a new name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, although he never legally changed it.     

“White society hates to hear anybody, especially a black man, talk about the crime the white man had perpetrated on the black man.  I have always understood that’s why I have been so frequently called ‘a revolutionist.’  It sounds as if I have done some crime!  Well, it may be that American black man does need to become involved with a real revolution.  The word for ‘revolution’ in German is Umwalzung.  What it means is a compete overturn—a complete change.  The overthrow of King Farouk in Egypt and the succession of President Nasser is an example of a true revolution.  It means the destroying of an old system, and its replacement with a new system.” (p374)

The NOI never stopped giving him trouble however.  Since the Nation owned the house, he lived in with his wife Betty and their daughters, they evicted them and even fire-bombed the place when he did not leave.  His life ended when he was assassinated by members of the NOI.   Just recently it was uncovered that the US Government had information that that was going to happen and did nothing to stop it.

At civil rights rally

Legendary actor Ossie Davis who eulogized Malcolm X has a written response to question posed by a magazine editor to why he performed that action.  I find the piece very prophetic when he explains who he thinks Malcolm X will be remembered.   Davis makes an analogy to John Brown.    

“But even had Malcolm not change, he would still have been a relevant figure on the American scene, standing in relation as he does, to the ‘responsible’ civil rights leaders, just about where John Brown stood in relation to the ‘responsible’ abolitionists in the fight against slavery.  Almost all disagreed with Brown’s mad and fanatical tactics which led him foolishly to attack a Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, to lose two sons there, and later be hanged for treason.

Yet, today the world, and especially the Negro people, proclaim that Brown not a traitor, but a hero and a martyr in a noble cause.  So in future, I will not be surprised if men come to see that Malcolm X was, within his own limitations, and in his own inimitable style, also a martyr in that cause.” (p.466)

This prediction has certainly come to pass.  Malcolm X is certainly more popular today than he ever was in his own time.  In the book he and Alex Haley go over a poll taken among African-Americans about who they thought was the most important leader in their community.  The poll revealed both that Dr. King was at the top and he, Malcolm X, barley registered.  He acknowledged that a lot of that was his fault for as a minster of the NOI they were not supposed to get involved with politics outside of their group.  They would take bold stands in support of their members, as in the incident when one of them named Hinton Johnson had been beaten by the police during an arrest causing Malcolm X to lead companies of his fellow Muslims to the police station and demanded their member be taken to a hospital.  However, when it came to doing something for the oppression of others, they would do nothing similar. They talked a big game about white oppression but with the intention of getting potential members to turn their back on mainstream society and embrace their group.  On the one major issue of the day that was most important to African-Americans: integration, the NOI was opposed.  Their stand would even earn them the respect of white nationalists such as the KKK and George Lincoln Rockwell.  

One of things that Malcolm X tries stress at the end of his book, although he repudiated Black Supremacy and Nationalism (while still holding White society to account) he hopes that his readers will be able to understand why it was such an ideology would have naturally appealed to someone with his life experiences and situation.   My assessment as a reader is in that respect this book is truly successful.  His main achievement with this book is he does show the reader why his world view became his world view, not only in why he embraced the NOI but also why he held some other controversial views that are still controversial.  For example, his view on Jewish people and women in general, he clearly explains to the reader why he has such views in a way that the reader can understand and sympathize with while still not embracing them.  I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in autobiographies of important historical figures.            

[Video is from British Films Institute] 

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[1] Ella Little-Collins is one of the more fascinating characters you get to meet in this book.  She led a life almost as interesting as her brother’s.

AN EYE INTO 19TH CENTURY AMERICAN SLAVERY

 

A review of Frederick Douglass Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) (1997, my copy)

(Rating 5 of 5)

                Frederick Douglass’s account of his journey as a person born into slavery who ultimately escaped to freedom was published in 1845.  It was the first time for many Americans, particularly those who would be mainstream voters, to see what American slavery was through the eyes of the enslaved.  He did not paint a pretty picture.  Douglass told tales of malnourishment, beatings with whips and other implements, forced illiteracy, and humans being bread for later sale when they were older.    

                When the book was first published it was attacked by southern slaveholders as forgery.  No slave could write as elegant as the passages in this book.  They were oppressing the enslaved population enough so they could be sure.  However, they didn’t count on a former slave who used to be named Frederick Bailey, armed with a little bit of luck and lot more craftiness, actually learning to read and write without their knowledge and passing that ability on to others.

Southern slavery

                Douglass’s target audience is the white population, particularly white men who could vote and impact the polices of the state and the federal governments.  One of the ideas that he reiterates throughout his work is that while all slavery is evil there is a spectrum of evilness.  Once you are enslaved it can still get worse for you.  Sometimes it can get better but the place you were before is always a place you can be sent back to.  During his enslavement Douglass experienced both ends of the extreme.  

               

“I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness.  It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake.  Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy.  The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.  At least, such is my experience.  I have often sung to drown my sorrow, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery.  The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion” (pg.30)

Douglass was born on a planation on date he was never told.  He was separated from his mother early on and his father was his owner.  That man was Captain Aaron Anthony who worked as an overseer on the plantation where Douglass was enslaved.  Despite being just the overseer, he did own a few of the slaves himself besides Douglass.  While living on the planation Douglass and the other slaves were treated as if they were farm animals given little to eat, poor clothes to wear, and beatings if they complained.  Then his owner/father died and he became the property of his half-sister Lucretia Auld, who then sent him to serve her brother-in-law and his wife, Hugh and Sophia Auld.

Plantation slavery 

                With this change his life instantly improved.  He went from being treated like a farm animal to being treated more like a live-in butler.  However, he was a butler who at any time could be sent back to be a farm animal.  He credits the change of status to the change of venue.  In a strange twist on the classical city mouse/country mouse, we have city slave/ country slave.  In this case it seems the city slave has the better deal.  Douglass points out that the slave/free population was reversed with the city having more free people.   Rebellious slaves were less of a risk and mistreating or malnourishing a slave tended to invite judgement from neighbors.  It is interesting point out that slave owner and US President James Madison also noted that slavery becomes more brutal the higher the slave population gets to the free population.

                This is also where Douglass has some important lessons for his readers.  All slaver holders were bad but there was a range of badness.  The majority that Douglass encountered would have redeemable traits that he would notice.   Then there were some who were just sadistically evil.  Douglass argued that the reason that any slave owner is going to be bad is that the nature of owning a slave is a morally corruptible one.  His analysis was similar to the saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

The case of Sophia Auld is the one he gives as a prime example.  Sophia Auld was from the North where there were no slaves.  Slavery is new to her as she moved to Baltimore with her new husband.  When she first meets Douglass, she treats him and all the other servants with kindness.  She even begins teaching Douglass how to read.  His reading lessons were cut short when her husband found out.  Hugh Auld gave a speech to his wife where he reprimanded her behavior with the slaves.  He explained teaching them to read would ruin them as slaves.   The speech had an impact on both of them: Douglass resolved to learn to read, but Sophia went in another direction.  When he tried to read newspapers, she would stanch them away.  As time went on, although not overtly cruel Sophia Auld became a typical slave owner.

“But, alas! This kind heard had but a short time to remain such.  The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work.  That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice, made all of sweet accord, changed to one of harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon.”  (pg.46)

Still yearning to read Douglass had to go about it a different way.  One of the advantages of now being a city-slave instead of being one on the plantation is Douglass had more freedom of movement as he could be sent on errands or even employed elsewhere so long as he gave his owners the money he earned.  While traveling among the citizens of Baltimore he discovered an interesting truth that there were different classes of white people with some of them being very impoverished.  These poor white citizens had freedom, literacy and a genuine hope their lot could improve all things Douglass himself was denied.  However, he did have couple of things that they did not such as roof over his head and food security. 

Martha Anne Atavis, enslaved in Baltimore to a family who she had to act as caretaker to their children, one is Alice in the picture

Armed with this knowledge, Douglass befriended some of these poor whites and offered a swap.  He would give them the excess food that he has access to if they would give him reading lessons.  It worked and Douglass was able to master reading.  He doesn’t identify any of the white people that helped him as this book was published when they were still alive and could have faced both legal and social consequences if those in Baltimore learned who they were.  

Now fully literate Douglass now wanted to expand that knowledge to his fellow slaves and had that opportunity when he was hired out to William Freeland.   Freeland is described by Douglass as the least oppressive as all the white slave owners that he labored under.  He was easy-going and not strict with the slaves.   This gave Douglass an opportunity to teach a number of students and spread literacy throughout the plantation.  This success was his undoing as it was discovered and his owner, Mr. Auld, decided to relocate Douglass from Mr. Freeman’s planation to the farm of Edward Covey.

Edward Covey was a farmer who was not well off enough to afford many slaves.  However, he had a great many slaves from other slave owners who sent them to him often paying him to house them.  They did this because Covey had a reputation for being a slave-breaker (they used a different word that Douglass does quote) who would train slaves through beating them to submission and once they were fully compliant sent them back to their owners.  Thus, he got slave labor without actually having to buy it.  There is even a disgusting scene of him breeding a young woman that he owns as a slave so he can sell her children.

Douglass suffered brutality under Covey.  This lasted until a fellow slave named Sandy Jenkins, helped him make a totem from a certain root they found in the woods that he claimed would magically protect him from violence from white overseers.  Douglass was skeptical of any magic, but it did have what we would call a placebo effect where having the totem gave him the courage to stand up to Covey.  He did so and was able to defeat Covey in a fight and beat the crap out of him.  Under ordinary circumstances this could have been a death sentence for Douglass however he had something working in his favor.  Covey got free use of slaves because of his reputation for being able to bend them to his will.  Had he formally charged Douglass he would have lost his reputation.  It was in their best interest to keep this a secret.  

“This battle with Mr. Covey was the turning point in my career as a slave.  It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood.  It recalled the departed self-confidence, and inspired me attain with a determination to be free.” (pg. 80-1)

After Douglass is sent back to live with the much more tolerable William Freeland, and this makes it easier to plan an escape.  I have to say given that American slavery was still going to go on for another twenty years I am not sure it was wise of him to write all he did about Freeland.   He was the most tolerable master he had and yet was under him that he began a mass literacy project and ultimately escaped.   A slaver owner who reads this work might use it as a perverse how-to-guide in how to keep slaves in line.  No kindness and maximize cruelty.  I think it might have been smarter to say something like “Freeland was starting to take lessons from Covey, so I had to escape.”  Then issue a correction in his later biographies.  

The book ends with his finding freedom, changing his name from Bailey to Johnson to finally Douglass, and getting involved with the abolitionist movements.  At the end of the book, he also makes a distinction between what he considers real Christianity and the Christianity of the slave holder, as not to offend non-slave holding Christians. 

I highly recommend this book Douglass brings you right into the world of slavery as it existed in the 1800s.  The book is simultaneously complex and easy to read.  It is only 125 pages so you can get through it in a very short period of time.  Sometimes it might take longer when going over some of the harder passages.  However, the book ends on a very hopeful note.

[Video is a clip from The Story of US you can purchase it here.}

FROM LOATHED LIAR TO REVERED ELDER STATESMAN

A review of Kasey S. Pipes’s After the Fall: The Remarkable Comeback of Richard Nixon (2019)

(Rating 4 of 5)

                  In addition to writing my book reviews on this blog, I will afterwards publish copies on Amazon.com and Goodreads.com.  The difference of course is those copies of my reviews don’t come with pictures and video links.  This July I was contacted by Jennifer Duplessie of Regnery Publishing. She had seen my review of Conrad Black's A Life in Full: Richard M. Nixon and wanted to know if I would like to have a new book to review and offered this one to me for free on the condition that I review it.  I then googled Regnery Publishing to see what they are all about was and was very amused to learn that they were a right-wing publishing company that produces a lot of conservative- leaning  works from Republican Party officials and right-wing commentators.  I said I was amused because they clearly had no idea what my politics were.  Just because I like someone’s biographical work does not mean I would agree with them on all their political positions or even most of them.  But hey, free is free and I might enjoy reading something written by the other side and taking it apart.  So I said "yes" and received it in the mail a week later.  However I was still slogging through Winston Churchill’s World War II memoirs (reviews on that to follow) so was unable to get to it right away. 

                  I began reading this book two weeks ago, reading a chapter or two a day.  I have to say I was really glad I did.  It is actually a very good book.  It offers a view into a period of the life of President Richard M Nixon that is not often covered.  Richard Nixon’s political career and presidency is arguably one of the most studied in the 20^th century.  The only President of the United States who is forced to resign.  The resignation and helicopter trip that the Nixons took after being escorted by his successor President Gerald Ford and First Lady Betty Ford is usually the end of the story.  The pardon is spoken of but mostly in passing.  Traditionally the narrative ends with Nixon waving goodbye.  In this book that is where the story begins: a disgraced President beginning to look for his road to redemption. 

                   Pipes ‘s writes with a smooth narrative that is easy to follow and understand.  The book is broken down to chapters with the first third dedicated to Nixon crawling back into the public consciousness with a series of carefully placed moves that allows him to slowly convince the American public to give him another try. 

                  Before he would begin his public rehabilitation he would first have to survive.  Shortly after his resignation Nixon had a health scare that Pipes’s shows nearly killed him and did causing great financial damage as he had no health insurance at the time.  This would add to President Nixon’s financial desperation which would be part of the later motivational fuel to get himself reestablished.  Now this particular part of Nixon’s life I had read about before as it was covered in Bob Woodward’s Shadow.  

Nixon in his post presidential office

                  Then we arrive at the Frost/Nixon interview.  These were a mixed back for Nixon.  It did give him an opportunity to tell his side of the story and it was the first attempt to go public again trying to shape the historical narrative of his presidency. Pipes writes that Nixon was a tad bit ill-prepared for the questions on Watergate.   While the Frost/Nixon interviews were being done, Pipes explains Nixon had recently been working on his memoirs and he had just gotten to Watergate.  He was now re-exploring those memories going over the materials that led to his downfall.   Therefore he was not as well versed in everything that was encompassed by Watergate as Frost was.  This leading into his stumbled statement of “when the president does it that means not illegal.”

                  Despite its flaws in the interview that he gave David Frost the exposure would start Nixon on his trajectory toward recovery.  He would go on to write nine books, give more interviews, and become a foreign policy adviser for several administrations, not limited to his own party, up until his death. 

Nixon returns with two other former Presidents to see President Reagan

                 James Buchanan, who when he left office in 1861 did so with the country being torn in two, in an effort to redeem himself in the public eye wrote and published his memoirs establishing a precedent that most future former presidents would follow.  When Herbert Hoover left office in 1933 with the country in the middle of a severe economic depression, in an effort to redeem his image he would establish the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library.  He was the first president to do such a thing who would then be followed by all subsequent presidents.  Now Nixon forced to resign in 1974 was going to create a new type of post-presidency that would be mimicked by his successors.

James Buchanan

Herbert Hoover

“In fact, in the first ten years following Watergate, Nixon had done more than just survive as a former president—he had unknowingly established a template for future ex-presidents to follow.   Before Nixon, former presidents in the modern era mostly stayed behind the scenes, Truman had returned to Missouri and Ike split his time between his farm in Gettysburg and Gettysburg and summers in Palm Springs.  Neither of them made many public appearances or waded into public issues.
             “But Nixon, largely because he wanted to rehabilitate his name—and in any case was never one for retirement—chose a different path.  He made money from delivering speeches and writing books.  He gave interviews with the media in which he tried to shape public opinion on important national issues.  He became something of an elder statesman.  The Nixon template is the template used by former presidents to this day.” (p.170)

                 Pipes describes a former president, who is always thinking of history’s judgment, and is working to make sure that the narrative that its very minimum would give him a fair shake.  It was a virtual guarantee that his presidency was to be studied he wanted to make sure that it was going to be studied in all its aspects and he would try to influence this by befriending and is sometimes recruiting historians to take up his cause.

“The former president went out of his way to encourage any historian he didn’t think was a liberal.  One of his favorites, a former Dole Senate staffer named Richard Norton Smith, burst onto the scene in the 1980s with a biography on Thomas E. Dewey that became a finalist for the Pulitzer.  Nixon would write to Smith and compliment him as an ‘honest historian.’ It’s a telling remark that demonstrates how Nixon viewed the rest of Smith’s colleagues.” (p.179)

Nixon would even go so far not only to recruit a historian by the name of Jonathan Aitken , personally edit his work for him, and then go off and try to pitch the manuscript to various publishers.  This was a hard sell because of its clear bias.  There was one publisher willing to help him out.  Any criticism I do have of this work by Pipes is right here.  For this is a little bit of shameless promotion because the publisher of this book, Regnery, is the publisher that would ultimately pick Nixon’s biography written by his chosen biographer.  Talk about being part of your own story!

“Nixon had feared that a book favorable to him could not win a contract in New York.  So he planned accordingly.  Having the book published was more important to Nixon than who published it.  He urged Aitken to pitch his book to Regnery, the conservative publishing house in Washington.  Aitken did so and found success.” (p. 245)

My favorite part about the book is how Pipes shows Nixon’s relationships with the five presidents who followed him into the White House.  Nixon was still underground when Ford was in office; he actively worked to replace Carter; was a semi-formal advisor to Reagan until they broke over arms reduction; was cool to Bush; and surprisingly he was very warm with Clinton.  The Clinton one is the most surprising, but in some ways understandable both presidents were students of history and could see past political differences.  

Bill Clinton with an unlikely mentor 

The only other thing that I felt was missing from this book was there was no mention of President Nixon acting as the arbitrator to settle a strike of professional umpires union against Major League Baseball.  The fact that those in power baseball, which is America's past time, felt that he was the person to turn to help resolve one of their most important issues of the day I think is a major statement about how President Nixon was now viewed by the public.

Scene from Nixon funeral

             In the end I do strongly recommend this book is a fascinating study and a new look at one of the 20^th century’s most important political figures facing a unique challenge and rising to that challenge with great success.  President Nixon’s career is one of peaks and valleys and thanks to his tireless efforts he assured for himself that when he died he did so on top of a peak.  Now that I read the book I enjoyed it to the point where I regret that I did not get to it right away as it was given to me by the publisher.  However with holidays only weeks away and you are struggling gift idea for that history buff in your life this might be a good one. 

{YouTube videos from CBS Network and 2achselhaare}

MR. CIVIL RIGHTS

A review of Juan Williams’ Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary (1998) 

(Rating 5 of 5)

Thurgood Marshall is one of the primary movers of the United States in the twentieth century.  He was a trailblazer who challenged racial segregation head-on in the courts and won.  Marshall reversed the over a half century precedent of ‘separate but equal’ by making the Supreme Court to finally see correctly what the Fourteenth Amendment is supposed to mean. 

Williams traces a young Thurgood Marshall who grew up in Maryland and was mostly uninfected by the segregation system that he would come to challenge.  It was not until he grew up and wanted to go law school when he found out that he could not get into the prestigious state law school and had to make other arrangements.  His mother, Norma, dominated the house that he grew up in.  She strongly pushed both her sons, and despite living in a world where everything was stacked against them, Norma ended up with a doctor and a lawyer. 

Young Thurgood Marshall

  

After graduating from Lincoln University, where he attended with Langston Hughes, he was denied entrance to the University of Maryland because of his race. Marshall was forced to go to Howard Law School, which was anything but prestigious.  Fortunately for Marshall—and ultimately the United States—Marshall’s arrival coincided with the arrival of Charles Houston as the dean.  Houston’s rigorous curriculum help prepare Marshall to become the lawyer that would change the nation.  

Langston Hughes, famous writer and classmate of Marshall's

Charles Houston, early Civil Rights lawyer an mentor to Marshall

Marshall goes to work for the NAACP where he helps establish the Legal Defense Fund.  Williams’ shows Marshall taking on case after case.  He defends poor black people down on their luck, and he attacks segregation at every opportunity for everyone but himself.  While becoming the bane of Jim Crow, he felt as a lawyer he needed to obey the law no matter how immoral it was.  His work to improve the lives of the African-American community led to him earning the nickname ‘Mr. Civil Rights.’ 

Mr. Civil Rights

Marshall had admirers in the white mainstream community as well as the African-American community.  Williams’ explains a great deal of strange alliances that Marshall made throughout his career, none more peculiar than his alliance with J. Edger Hoover. 

As Marshall built his career by challenging Jim Crow at the graduate school and college level, but he really made history with his victory in Brown v. the Board of Education that overturned the evil of Plessy v. Ferguson. 

            “No one had to tell him this was the biggest case of his career.  This case could change the face of American society.  Marshall began calling conferences of the brightest minds from around the nation to discuss every angle of the case.  Lawyers, law professors, sociologists, anthropologists, and even psychologists, notably Ken Clark, all came to Marshall’s office to discuss how to convince the Court that separate but equal was a devastating burden to black people, nothing more than racism.” (p.209)

Biographies are not worth much if you do not learn something about the people whom the subject shared the stage of history.  If you read a biography of Abraham Lincoln and you learn nothing of Stephen Douglas, then the biography fails.  In the case Marshal, I learned a great deal on his Brown adversary John W. Davis.  All I knew about Davis was his status as the Democratic nominee for President in 1924 and the segregation defender in the Brown decision.  The irony is Marshall, as a law student, use to watch Davis before the Supreme Court regularly and actually admired him.  Marshall would after Brown tell people that beat Davis but knew few who did.  

Marshall with Davis during the Brown Supreme Court case

Davis kind of reminds me of polite anti-marriage equality people.  Who maybe personally nice and polite and may not actually hate their opponents but are completely blind to the mass of hatred that is sitting to the right behind them.

       

As the fifties turned into the sixties the rank and file of the Civil Rights Movement—especially the younger members—got tired of the slow crawl of integration and embraced the non-violent direct action methods.  The leader of this new generation of civil rights leaders was Martin Luther King, Jr.  There was a huge generation gap between the young pastor and the older lawyer.  Marshall thought King was nice enough young man who could give good speeches but he also felt that King and his associates got way too much credit for the work that people like him really did.  Nevertheless, he kept a united front with King and never publicly criticized him.   

While Marshall had his reservations on Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference he had a respect for them; unlike Black Nationalist movement that Marshall absolutely despised.  He couldn’t stand Malcolm X and refused to meet with him even after the later dropped his separatist ideas.  To Marshall, Black Nationalism was undermining everything he had worked for in his entire life. 

 

While not only working for civil rights at home, Marshall went aboard under an invention from the new nation of Kenya to come and aid them in writing their constitution.  This great act of a statesmanship increased his international prestige. 

During the Kennedy Administration, Marshall filled his lifelong ambition and became a judge.  Now serving on the U.S. court of appeals, Marshall’s name disappeared from the newspapers and he was now working on business cases the completely disinterested him.  Marshall was relieved when he was asked by President Johnson to become the U.S. Solicitor General.  This was an interesting switch for him, because for years he challenged the system and now he was the government’s top lawyer.

 

The high point of Marshall’s life was his appointment to the Supreme Court.  He would be the first African-American to be appointed to this high position.  However in reading Williams’ account Marshall’s experience of the court was not what he thought it was going to be.

Justice Marshall

Marshall is unquestionably one of the greatest American lawyers in our history. Marshall easily ranks up there with the likes of Henry Clay and Clarence Darrow.  As a justice however, although he breaks major color barrier in American society, his career on the Supreme Court was not anywhere near as successful as his earlier career had been.  Part of this is not his fault.  He lacked opportunity due the changing climate on the court.  After his confirmation a conservative backlash would have the Republicans winning five out of the next six presidential elections.  This resulted in the Court growing evermore conservative.  Marshall would find himself in the minority and writing dissents more often than not.  In addition, throughout his stay on the Court he was suffering from numerous health problems.  This would also contribute to his declining effectiveness on the Court.  

I highly recommend this book.  I disagree with Juan Williams’ on many things politically but his historical work is awesome and he put together an incredible biography of one of our great statesmen Thurgood Marshall.

{Video was posted on YouTube by SECRETMOVIES; it is a long lost Mike Wallace interview.  If you can sit through the first couple of parts where the video cuts out you will see a fascinating video.  Also after the interview Mike Wallace has to do station advertising personally}.