Mark K. Updegrove

“It was the year of Birmingham, when the civil rights issue was impressed on the nation in a way that nothing else before had been able to do. It was the most decisive year in the Negro’s fight for equality. Never before had there been such a coalition of conscience on this issue.
(Page 213) quoting Martin Luther King, Jr.”
― Mark K. Updegrove, Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency

“Most important, he didn’t lust for power. Imagine Lenin, Mao, or Castro—revolutionaries all—willingly ceding power and giving it back to the masses (or at least to a voting constituency of white male property owners) to decide who would succeed him. Washington was the one man in American history who was bigger than the government itself; the hero of the revolution could have been the emperor of the state he, more than any other, helped found. Instead, he ensured that government would remain in the hands of the people. In doing so, he set his most important precedent, leaving office after two terms in office and exemplifying a fundamental Democratic ideal.”
― Mark K. Updegrove, Baptism by Fire: Eight Presidents Who Took Office in Times of Crisis