Charles W. Whalen (1920–2011)

This is a fascinating, in-depth, day-by-day account of the creation, debate and passage of one of the most important pieces of legislation to ever come out of the United States Congress. Charles Whalen served in the U.S. Congress from 1967 to 1979, so although he wasn't part of the proceedings described in his book, he knew a lot of the participants and was intimately familiar with the workings of the two chambers. Barbara Whalen, Charles' wife, was, among other things, a newspaper columnist in their native Ohio.

The book takes the bill from its inception during the John F. Kennedy administration, urged upon the president by his brother, Robert, the attorney general, as a moral imperative, through Kennedy's assassination and to the legislation's passage with even stronger support than Kennedy's by his successor in the White House, Lyndon Johnson. Committee meetings, caucuses, pressure and support from civil rights leaders, individual arm-twisting and cajoling, all are delved into here in a riveting, detailed presentation. The alliances crossed party lines, and it is great to be reminded that in the 1960s, the Republican Party had a very strong liberal wing and the southern Democrats were among the strongest, most stubborn foes of the advances represented by this legislation. But other than the last-ditch defenders of segregation and Jim Crow in the House and Senate, the feeling across both houses was that Civil Rights was an idea whose time had come, and that it was important to get on the right side of history. Nevertheless, the bill's opponents in the Senate mounted the longest filibuster effort in history.

This book was originally published in 1985, only 20 years after the events described. It's not intended as a comprehensive overview of the Civil Rights struggle, but as a close up look at the passage of this law.

However, I have just found a less laudatory review of this book which focuses on the Whalen's historical inaccuracies and omissions written upon the book's appearance by law and history professor Michael R. Belknap: https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/164951/05_01_BR_Belknap.pdf;s...… (mer)