Profiles in Courage for Our Time

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In the spirit of her father's Pulitzer Prize–winning Profiles in Courage, Caroline Kennedy has assembled a collection of essays celebrating the winners of the prestigious annual Profiles in Courage Award. The pair-ups are impressive: Michael Beschloss on Carl Elliot; Anna Quindlen on James Florio; Pete Hamill on Henry Gonzalez; Bob Woodward on Gerald Ford. An attractively packaged book about civic heroes.

Booklist

High-profile names of the editor and writers will attract wide interest.

Publishers Weekly

In 1957, then-senator John F. Kennedy won a Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage. In 1990, the Kennedy family resurrected the concept and established the Profiles in Courage Award for selfless public service. Now, in this expertly packaged anthology, Caroline Kennedy and over a dozen prominent writers bring the sacrifices of those award winners to life. Some essays address famous leaders like the Good Friday peacemakers in Ireland and campaign-finance-reform stalwarts John McCain and Russell Feingold. Others hail lesser-known local officials, like school superintendent Corkin Cherubini, who braved a firestorm to end race-based tracking in Georgia. All the winners acted with a rare breed of selfless courage but sometimes this courage came at a terrible cost. U.S. Representative Carl Elliot Sr. was chased out of office in 1964 because he fought segregation in Alabama; by the time he won the first Profile in Courage Award, he was living alone in a ramshackle house, confined to a wheelchair by diabetes and hounded by creditors. Kennedy has assembled an impressive roster of writers to compose these mostly inspirational stories: Michael Beschloss, Anna Quindlen, Albert R. Hunt. The most audacious essay in the collection belongs to Bob Woodward, who reverses 25 years of conventional wisdom in arguing that former president Gerald Ford should be applauded for his pardon of Richard Nixon after Watergate. Of course, not all of the essays have the same level of distinction, but all share the same Kennedy spirit. Unabashedly liberal and pro-government, this collection is a stirring look at people who rarely thought about what they could do for themselves, but always about what they could do for their country. (May) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

KLIATT

In the original Profiles, John F. Kennedy cites Ernest Hemingway's "Grace under pressure," to define courage. But this definition is more a reflection of the Kennedy penchant for style than a useful description of the virtue. His daughter has stretched that qualification again, suggesting that these new "profiles" reflect a more contemporary understanding of courage. One does feel the weight of generational narcissism posed in the subtitle, "For Our Time," which perhaps anticipates that not everyone will agree with all 16 Profiles-In-Courage Award winners and nearly a dozen "Irish Peacemakers" also feted with the "Silver Lantern" Award. All, of course are worthy recipients, if in some cases, controversial. There are those who raise courage to a higher level of recognition; people who knowingly lay their lives on the line for high principle or to save others. John Lewis, now Congressman from Georgia and Nickolas C. Murnion, a prosecuting attorney from rural Garfield County, fall into that category and are by far, the two most compelling stories in this book. Lewis pitted his life against attack dogs, the permanently crippling aftermath of brickbats and skin-peeling fire hoses to bring the first glimmer of real freedom and dignity to African Americans. Murnion, from small-town Jordan, Montana (pop. 365), "took on a band of home-grown terrorists, anarchic, coherently livid, armed-to-the-teeth "Freeman," endangering his own life when he confronted the lawlessness of this militia who seized the town, cowed the local police and were only a few miles and minutes away from lynching him." Compare these profiles to James Florio, former Governor of New Jersey, who is praised for standing up to theNational Rifle Association on laws banning automatic weapons even though all the police institutions in the state and most of New Jersey voters supported the ban. Florio was defeated in a brilliant sub-rosa attack by the NRA, not for his stand on assault weapons but for his tax increases. The Governor never knew what hit him until it was too late. President Ford is cited for his "courageous" pardon of Richard Nixon, a decision he made after a particularly nettlesome press conference in which he complained, "too many questions are about Nixon." Responding privately to aides he added, "We can't have this for the next two and half years." The prism of history filters our emotions in a way not possible when we evaluate the character or the times of contemporary figures; particularly those who are still with us. Teachers might consider assigning students a comparative analysis of the characters in both the original and latter-day Profiles. How would John McCain, Lowell Weicker and Kofi Annan stand up to the bravery of Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton and Sam Houston as each faced the demon issues of their times? KLIATT Codes: SA;Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2002, Hyperion, 361p.,
— William Kircher

Kirkus Reviews

Character sketches of 14 men and women who have won the Profiles in Courage Award, which recognizes elected officials who "stood fast for the ideals of America." Gratifyingly, this is not just another collection of eulogies; some of the winners have blots on their political escutcheons that are duly noted. Nor will all readers agree on the worthiness of each recipient, as the obvious case of Gerald Ford attests. Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon "was the only way of ending the public and media obsession with his predecessor's future," Bob Woodward unconvincingly claims, begging the point that the obsession arose from concern over the consequences of illegal acts in high office and the impeccable standards to which citizens (we hope) hold those who hold office. Other winners are more obviously laudable, such as Texas Representative Henry B. Gonzalez, who fought Jim Crow laws in his home state and "totally resisted the prevailing slickness that was debasing our politics," as Pete Hamill puts it. Corkin Cherubini, captured by Marion Wright Edelman, fought race-based tracking ("a kind of educational apartheid") as superintendent of Georgia's public schools. California Senator Hilda Solis, profiled by Anthony Walton, constructed legal guidelines that identified and mitigated "the negative environmental and health effects of pollution and waste-disposal facilities on low-income and minority populations." An example of a fence-straddler is Carl Elliott Sr., congressman from Alabama. As Michael Beschloss writes, much can be said for Elliott's "aid-to-education bill," which sought to bring equality to the Alabama school system. Yet he also signed the notorious "Southern Manifesto" and truckled toGeorge Wallace's racist politics. By and large, a refreshing sampling of political legacies cleaving to the notion of equality and justice on behalf of the weak and exploited