A lesson learned from FREEDOM SEASON: HOW 1963 TRANSFORMED AMERICA'S CIVIL RIGHTS REVOLUTION, by Peniel Joseph
Tolerating hatred and violence against anyone degrades your entire society. The JFK era has long been an historical era that has fascinated me, partly because my grandparents were all loyal Kennedy people, and also because I truly believe that with all of JFK's deep flaws, that he was the last thing we had to anything resembling tremendous presidential leadership (it was a sad realization I recently had that for most of my lifetime, the best of American society has not actually lead us, a symbol of just how broken how country has become). The 1960's were an era of great tumult in general, and the fact that so few of that era's great leaders actually survived it undoubtedly played a major role in the overall decline of our national leadership in the coming decades. Peniel Joseph's excellent new book Freedom Season examines in detail the crucial year of 1963, which was a year of wrenching change for the nation that was filled both with some of our most inspiring his...