The Racial Attitudes of American Presidents, From Abraham Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt.

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First edition, first printing. “The chief objective of this investigation is to ascertain the racial views of American Presidents during a selected period of history. The major emphasis has been placed on the black American, the largest racial minority in America, but not to the exclusion of other racial groups [...] A secondary purpose of this book is to determine the extent to which Gunnar Myrdal’s anti-amalgamation hypothesis was supported in the racial rhetoric of the Presidents covered in this study. A final and perhaps pervasive aim is to obtain additional insight into the dynamics of race adjustment, and to determine the extent to which ideas of race influenced the general thinking and political behavior of these Presidents.”

“Being under no illusion about the difficulties of relating thought to action, theory to practice, the author has limited the book primarily to what the Presidents said about race and is only secondarily concerned with what they did. Discerning accurately the relationship between thought and action may well be beyond the scope of the historical method. Yet, the two things can hardly be divorced, and so some attempt has been made to explain certain actions of the Presidents in terms of their ideas on race.” (Preface)

Price: $35.00