The Civil Rights Movement and the Presidency in the Hot Years of the Cold War: A Historical and Historiographical Assessment

2007/11/14 by Derek Charles Catsam · 2 citations
Social Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · #Race, History, and American Society #American Constitutional Law and Politics #American History and Culture

paper · doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00486.x

openalex publication_date 2007/11/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

Abstract The two most important phenomena that the United States confronted in the quarter century after the end of World War II were the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement. Four presidents, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson had to deal with the most critical years of both the struggle for racial justice and the challenge of Communist totalitarianism. This historiographical article seeks to situate each of these presidents within the context of the explosion of literature on the presidency and the fight for black equality and to provide suggestive assessments of these presidencies and their successes and failures in addressing black demands.

Citations

• Toward New Histories of the Civil Rights Era

Cited by

• Civil rights movement [wikipedia]
• Presidency of Harry S. Truman [wikipedia]

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