Nixon's piano

by Kenneth O'Reilly

Kenneth O'Reilly, whose Racial Matters blew the lid off the FBI's investigation and harassment of black leaders, now scrutinizes each president's record on race. Nixon's Piano reveals that instead of being the agents of progress in racial relations, American presidents have a long and consistent history of supporting slavery, obstructing civil rights, and deliberately fanning racism. With the exceptions of Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson, argues O'Reilly, every president has sacrificed black rights for white votes. Perhaps most alarming, O'Reilly offers substantial evidence of presidents whose repressive political policies violated their own moral code. George Washington corresponded with Lafayette about the evils of slavery and mused about establishing a plantation for freed blacks, but President Washington kept his slaves and refused to lend the weight of his office to the abolitionist movement. Jefferson, certain and eloquent on the subject of equality in the Declaration of Indep