In His Own Right The Political Odyssey Of Senator Robert F Kennedy Joseph Palermo by Joseph Palermo 9780231502658, 0231502656 instant download after payment.

Based on never-before-seen documents, this book chronicles RFK's extraordinary transformation from Cold Warrior to grass roots activist. Palermo focuses on the crucial nexus between '60s social activism and Kennedy's role as national leader, demonstrating how civic groups and individual activists educated him about the conflict in Southeast Asia and racial and class injustice at home.

Robert Kennedy's role in American politics during the 1960s was pivotal yet has defied attempts to define it. He was a junior senator from New York, but he was also much more. The public perceived him as possessing the intangible qualities of his brother, the slain president. From 1965 to 1968 Kennedy struggled to find his own voice in national affairs.In His Own Right examines this crucial period of Robert Kennedy's political career, combining the best of political biography with a gripping social history of the social movements of the 1960s. How did Kennedy make the transformation from cold warrior to grassroots activist, from being a political operator known for ruthlessness toward his opponents to becoming, by 1968, a "tribune of the underclass"? Based on never before seen documents, this intimate portrait of one of the most respected politicians never elected president describes Robert Kennedy's relationship with such well-known activists and political players as Benjamin Spock, Eugene McCarthy, Allard Lowenstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Cesar Chavez, as well as the ordinary men and women who influenced Kennedy's views as he came to stand in the public arena and in the national consciousness as a man and a leader in his own right.