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

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.