The Civil Rights Movement is often looked back upon as a time when social activism sparked real political change. During that time, the United States saw some of its greatest leaders guide the country through turbulent years. Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy provided different models of leadership, which some argue are needed today.
In this episode, Professor Julian Zelizer (external link) interviews Steven Levingston (external link), nonfiction editor at the Washington Post (external link), about the battle over civil rights. Levingston is the author of "Kennedy and King: The President, the Pastor, and the Battle over Civil Rights (external link)", “Little Demon in the City of Light: A True Story of Murder and Mesmerism in Belle Époque Paris (external link)” and “The Kennedy Baby: The Loss that Transformed JFK (external link).”
ABOUT THE HOSTS
Zelizer (external link) is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University (external link)'s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (external link). He has been one of the pioneers in the revival of American political history. He is the author of several books including, most recently, "The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society." Zelizer is a frequent commentator in the international and national media on political history and contemporary politics. He has published more than 600 hundred op-eds, including his weekly column on CNN.com (external link).
Wang (external link) is professor of neuroscience and molecular biology at Princeton University. He is known for his books "Welcome to Your Brain" and "Welcome to Your Child's Brain" and for his founding role at the Princeton Election Consortium (external link), a blog providing U.S. election analyses. In 2004, Wang was one of the first to aggregate U.S. presidential polls using probabilistic methods. He has also developed new statistical standards for partisan gerrymandering. A neuroscientist, Wang's academic research focuses on the neuroscience of learning, the cerebellum and autism.