Lyndon Johnson, Civil Rights Focus of April 16 Talk

Lyndon Johnson, Civil Rights Focus of April 16 Talk
BY PHILIP MONTGOMERY
Rice News Staff
E-mail: pmontgom@rice.edu
Phone: (713) 831-4792
April 9, 1998

William E. Leuchtenburg, a leading authority on the New Deal and its effects
on U.S. politics, will talk about Lyndon Johnson and civil rights during this
year’s final Ethics, Politics and Society lecture on April 16.

Leuchtenburg brings to bear a rare combination of passion, intellect and wit
to illuminate an important figure and moment in 20th century American politics,
said Larry Temkin, professor of philosophy and director of the lecture series.
Leuchtenburg is well respected among historians.

"He is the dean of U.S. history in the 20th century," said Allen
Matusow, the W.G. Twyman Professor of History. "What to me Leuchtenburg
exemplifies is the scholar who can communicate to the general public. He honors
the standards of the profession. He meets the highest scholarly standards, but
because of his prose style and the breadth of his interests, he can communicate
to a larger audience. In that sense, to me, he is a model of what a historian
ought to be."

Leuchtenburg, the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, will wrap up the Rice University Lecture Series on
Ethics, Politics and Society at 4 p.m., Thursday, April 16, in the McMurtry
Auditorium of Anne and Charles Duncan Hall. The event is free and open to the
public.

Harold Hyman, the W.P. Hobby Professor of History, has known Leuchtenburg since
1950 when they both were doctoral students at Columbia University.

Leuchtenburg is a provocative and lucid lecturer, said Hyman, who noted that
the historian never talks down to audiences and makes complicated topics accessible.

"He believes history has a message," Hyman said. "He is a very
forthright man. In obvious formal ways, he is a leader in terms of significance
of his research.

The historian is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and
has served as president of the American Historical Association. He has appeared
on radio and television, most notably as a presidential inauguration analyst
for CBS and PBS.

Leuchtenburg has been publishing books since 1953. Two of his books have had
profound effects upon two generations of students, Matusow said.

Those books are the "The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-32" (University
of Chicago Press, 1958), which Matusow called "a wonderful survey of those
years, written in engaging prose."

The second book is "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940"
(Harper and Row, 1963), which the Rice historian referred to as one of the standard
texts on the subject and a serious scholarly work that also is accessible to
undergraduates.

Matusow said that as a graduate student in 1958 he was one of the students
influenced by Leuchtenburg. He read "The Perils Of Prosperity" when
the book first came out. Matusow introduced his own students to Leuchtenburg.

"When I first got to Rice in 1963, his "New Deal" book came
out," Matusow said. "I certainly assigned those books [to students]
for a number of years myself."

The lecture series is sponsored by the president, the provost, the dean of
the School of Humanities and the Department of Philosophy.

For more information about the lecture series, contact Minranda Robinson-Davis
in the Department of Philosophy at (713) 527-4994 or <mrd@ruf.rice.edu>
or the Dean of Humanities Office at (713) 527-4810 or <dhum@rice.edu>.

For related information visit the following Web site:
Rice University Department of Philosophy: www.ruf.rice.edu/~philos/