First published 2023
Samuel Freedman challenges the standard view of Hubert Humphrey as a political failure. The veteran journalist focuses on Humphrey's transformative early career rather than his later stumbles with Vietnam and his 1968 loss to Nixon. Freedman argues that Humphrey championed racial justice before anyone else in his party and forced the Democrats to abandon their segregationist wing. At 37, Humphrey delivered a convention speech in 1948 that electrified America and launched the modern civil rights movement within the Democratic Party. Freedman avoids writing a flattering portrait. Instead, he uses Humphrey's mixed reputation to highlight his most significant achievement: dragging his party toward integration when southern Democrats still dominated its ranks. The book reveals a politician who understood civil rights before the term "woke" existed and who paid a price for his early courage.
Genres: biography, historical-fiction, 20th-century, political-science, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-figures, political-drama
Period: 1948, 20th-Century
336 pages · Hardcover · Oxford University Press