Several people have been constant sources of encouragement, including
my former major professor Carl Brauer, an expert on the Kennedy adminis-
tration; my gracious former colleagues, Martha Swain and Dorothy DeMoss;
my old basketball teammate, Jim Anderson; Greg Russell, who reads
Advanced Placement exams in US history with me each year; and Sababu
Norris, director of the Canisius office of multicultural affairs. Gordon Martel,
the series editor at Longman, and Casey Mein, the acquisitions editor,
showed more patience than a dilatory writer had reason to expect.
An irreplaceable debt is owed to my family, especially to my supportive
parents, Richard and Yvonne, my brother David, my uncle Charles, and my
late uncle James. My heartfelt gratitude goes to my wife Kate, an incisive his-
torian in her own right and an expert on white southern liberals in the civil
rights movement. Once again, she put aside her own work to plow through
mine. She also devoted much time attending to our daughter Elizabeth, the
light of our lives. It is to Kate that this book is dedicated. Errors that remain
are no one’s fault but my own.Acknowledgements xiTHEC_A01.qxd 9/12/08 10:57 PM Page xi