| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 161 words from this article are provided below; about 395 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race: How the Presidency Paved the Road to Brown. By Kevin J. McMahon. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. x, 298 pp. Cloth, $52.00, ISBN 0-226-50086-1. Paper, $20.00, ISBN 0-226-50088-8.)

What Kevin J. McMahon reconsiders here is the not uncommon contention that along the color line, Franklin D. Roosevelt lacked the courage of his wife's convictions. "We weren't concerned with civil rights," as the political fixer and sometime White House aide Thomas "Tommy the Cork" Corcoran plainly noted. "[It wasn't] a primary consideration of the guy at the top. He does his best for it, but he ain't gonna lose his votes for it." McMahon challenges this view by focusing on Roosevelt's efforts to sneak under the color line with a patient and largely low-profile campaign "to form a civil rights mission on the Supreme Court" (p. ix). The author thus describes his book as "a tour of the Roosevelt administration's judicial policy" (p. 23).

. . .

There are about 395 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.