A Pulitzer Prize winner's up-close account of how a white president and a black minister ultimately came together to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Opposites in almost every way, mortally suspicious of each other at first, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr., were thrust together in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Both men sensed a historic opportunity and began a delicate dance of accommodation that moved them,...

A behind-the-scenes history of the most momentous decade in American politics, now with a new introduction by the author. Richard N. Goodwin entered public service in 1958 as a law clerk for Supreme Court Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter. He left politics ten years later in the aftermath of Senator Robert F. Kennedy's assassination. Over the course of one extraordinary decade, Goodwin orchestrated some of the noblest achievements in the history...

This book presents an in-depth, engrossing look at the African American political experience and the history of African American legislators in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. This unique resource combines original narrative with more than 160 primary source documents, from the first steps toward enfranchisement through modern lawmakers visions for the United States.