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Nixon's Piano

Name: Nixon's Piano
Author: Kenneth O'Reilly
ISBN: 9780029236857

by Kenneth O'Reilly

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Overview

Kenneth O'Reilly, whose Racial Matters blew the lid off the FBI's investigation and harassment of black leaders, now scrutinizes each president's record on race. Nixon's Piano reveals that instead of being the agents of progress in racial relations, American presidents have a long and consistent history of supporting slavery, obstructing civil rights, and deliberately fanning racism. With the exceptions of Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson, argues O'Reilly, every president has sacrificed black rights for white votes. Perhaps most alarming, O'Reilly offers substantial evidence of presidents whose repressive political policies violated their own moral code. George Washington corresponded with Lafayette about the evils of slavery and mused about establishing a plantation for freed blacks, but President Washington kept his slaves and refused to lend the weight of his office to the abolitionist movement. Jefferson, certain and eloquent on the subject of equality in the Declaration of Independence, found no voice as president to oppose slavery. Lincoln, the first president to allow blacks at White House social functions and the eventual hero of the abolitionist movement, opposed black efforts to vote, sit on juries, hold office, or marry whites. Like many other presidents, Lincoln supported the colonization movement as the simplest solution to the nation's racial strife. FDR, the father of twentieth century social reform, but fearful of offending white voters, refused to support an anti-lynching law, banned black reporters from press conferences, and undermined his own Fair Employment Practice Committee. More recent presidents, according to O'Reilly, have pursued a racial politics ranging from the timid to the devious. With substantial evidence and insightful analysis of both official policy and private conduct, O'Reilly illustrates that the principle of white over black has been the fundamental organizing principle of American politics from the beginning of our nat

O'Reilly, whose Racial Matters blew the lid off the FBI's investigation and harassment of black leaders, now paints a revealing portrait of each president's record on race. He documents that, with the exception of Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson, American presidents have used the power of their office to impede racial equality.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

University of Alaska historian O'Reilly (Racial Matters) ably synthesizes a large volume of material to portray what he sees as the mostly sorry record of American presidents who, on matters of race, pandered to what was worst in America for the sake of votes. The early leaders, Reilly posits, were hypocrites; Abraham Lincoln ``was the first to act his conscience on matters of race.'' Even New Dealer FDR accommodated himself to Jim Crow in military strategy, and Harry Truman and JFK (a ``civil rights minimalist'') were pushed not by ideals but by pressure or expediency. O'Reilly has harsh words for Ronald Reagan's attempt to turn the clock back and George Bush's consistent flip-flops on race. If Jimmy Carter's compromises on affirmative action couldn't keep his fellow Southern whites in the fold, Bill Clinton has even more carefully pursued a ``balancing act'' in which he regularly dissociates himself from the likes of Jesse Jackson and Lani Guinier. ``These are bleak times,'' the author concludes, suggesting that attacks on welfare and affirmative action still don't address the source of white middle-class anxiety. (Nov.)

Mary Carroll

Yes, the title is strange: it refers to a racist minstrel-show performance in which the president and vice president (Spiro Agnew) mocked their "Southern strategy" before journalists and guests at a 1970 Gridiron Club dinner. The argument of University of Alaska historian O'Reilly is just as audacious: he maintains that a "Southern strategy" --" a belief that presidential elections can be won only by following the doctrines and rituals of white over black" --has been "the gut organizing principle of American politics" ever since the Constitutional Convention compromised with slavery. Only Lincoln and LBJ stand as exceptions: despite the former's "white supremacist caveats" and the latter's "surveillance state," these two presidents truly improved African Americans' status and opportunities. After one chapter on "Owners" (Washington to McKinley) and one on "Progressives" (Teddy Roosevelt to Hoover), O'Reilly's remaining seven chapters study the many ways in which presidents from FDR to Clinton--often despite personal goodwill--have "deepened . . . the racial rut" in which "the politics that came out of the Constitution and its articles on slavery" has been stuck for more than two centuries. Provocative history, convincingly argued.