Steven Levingston > Quotes

“King had to overcome White House mistrust, disregard, and stonewalling before his message sank in. As he observed: “It’s a difficult thing to teach a president.”
― Steven Levingston, Kennedy and King: The President, the Pastor, and the Battle over Civil Rights

“You have a temperament,” he told her, “that finds pleasure in a labyrinth of intrigue. Be careful—because you will be a victim again and again.”
― Steven Levingston, Little Demon in the City of Light: A True Story of Murder and Mesmerism in Belle Epoque Paris

“THE PROTESTS CHANGED national sentiment. Before Birmingham, only 4 percent of Americans polled believed civil rights was the country’s most urgent issue; after Birmingham, that figure jumped to 52 percent.”
― Steven Levingston, Kennedy and King: The President, the Pastor, and the Battle over Civil Rights

“indeed a trunk numbered 1231 that departed Paris on the”
― Steven Levingston, Little Demon in the City of Light: A True Story of Murder and Mesmerism in Belle Epoque Paris

“In the past, Jack was noticeably tense around his father. In Joe’s presence the son fidgeted, tapped his front teeth and stroked his jaw, signs of his anxiety that were familiar to friends and associates. Now the president was as tender with his father as he was with his children; if Caroline and John Jr. taught Jack to express affection in surprising new ways, his father’s debility stirred unexpected depths of consideration and empathy.”
― Steven Levingston, Kennedy and King: The President, the Pastor, and the Battle over Civil Rights

“As Robert Kennedy rushed to the hospital, the President went down the corridor filled with ailing children on the way to see his own distressed newborn. While waiting for\the elevator he paced restlessly, and his eye wandered into a nearby room, falling on a small child who had been badly burned. JFK summoned the night nurse and asked about the child and the parents. He wanted to know how the accident happened. And how often did the mother visit the hospital? When he learned the mother came every day, the President asked the nurse, “Could you tell me the mother’s name?” Taking a slip of paper and a pen from Powers he scrawled a note of sympathy to the mother. “There he was, with his own baby dying downstairs,” Powers said, “but he had to take the time to write a note to that poor woman, asking her to keep her courage up.”
― Steven Levingston, The Kennedy Baby: The Loss That Transformed JFK

“despite the inconvenience, the blacks stayed off of public transport; they took to their feet or to car pools. As one seventy-year-old woman famously sighed, “My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.”
― Steven Levingston, Kennedy and King: The President, the Pastor, and the Battle over Civil Rights