Guest Blogger: Amy Schapiro on the 89th birthday of civil rights hero Nicholas Katzenbach.

Katzenbach confronting Alabama Governor George Corley Wallace outside the University of Alabama, 1963.  

In the last half of the twentieth century, the United States was transformed by many conflicts. None caused more public outcry than the struggles of the civil rights movement here at home and the bloodshed a world away in Vietnam. One man deeply entwined with both struggles, but often overlooked by history, is Nicholas Katzenbach, who celebrates his 89th birthday today.

For decades the image of this tall, balding government official confronting Governor George Wallace at the University of Alabama has come to symbolize the lengths to which Washington would go to desegregate America’s educational institutions.  Katzenbach, then Deputy Attorney General, was dispatched to Alabama by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to challenge the segregationist governor over the integration of the state university.




Nicholas Katzenbach in 1968.



In the midst of a media storm, Katzenbach stood his ground, ensuring that James Hood and Vivian Malone, two African-American students seeking entrance into this historically white university, were registered.

Among the throngs who watched this encounter unfold was a 12-year-old boy. As he later said, “1963 was a good year, the Dodgers beat the Yankees. I was 12, I was becoming aware of a lot going on, and seeing Katzenbach with Wallace sparked my interest.”

“I remember wondering who is a Deputy Attorney General (DAG) and looked it up in the encyclopedia to find out. I’m not sure if I found it there, but I remember learning that the DAG was essentially the Vice President of the Department of Justice.” Thirty years later that boy, Eric Holder,  became Deputy Attorney General. Today he serves as the first African American Attorney General in American history.  Little could Eric Holder have known then that he would assume the same positions as Katzenbach, both as DAG and later Attorney General, or that Vivian Malone, one of the two students who integrated the University of Alabama, would be his future sister-in-law.


Katzenbach’s focus as both Deputy Attorney General and Attorney General was on passage of civil rights legislation and its enforcement. Without enforcement, the law would be hollow. Katzenbach was the rare person who was trusted by both Robert Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. And, it was Katzenbach who succeeded Kennedy as Johnson’s Attorney General. Although RFK and LBJ despised each other, they both, at different times, came to rely on Katzenbach to advise, shape, and move legislation forward.


When Katzenbach was not putting out fires in the field, he was busy navigating the legislative minefield and the pressure of civil rights activists to secure the codification of equal rights for all Americans.
 As we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr., and his great strides in changing the fabric of our society, let's also remember Nicholas Katzenbach who today, January 17, celebrates his 89th birthday. 

Happy Birthday.


Amy Schapiro is writing a biography of Nicholas Katzenbach entitled, Leading Justice: The Life of Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach to be published by the University of Alabama.

4 Videos: Remembering the Lion of the Senate Ted Kennedy

From Denny: It's an end of an era and the beginning of a new one with the passing of the torch from Senator Ted Kennedy to the next generation. The man certainly paved the way for the next generation of liberal social issue politicians who are as concerned for creating a better and more equal society for all.

The Kennedy legacy is well known worldwide as theirs was a wealthy family strongly involved in politics. They put their money - and their daily work - where their mouth was.

Kennedy's character stain upon his name and legacy came during his alcoholic years and crescendoed with the drowning of an aide in a car accident from which he fled. Much of the public figured he drank so heavily because of the not one, but two assassinations of his political brothers: one, President John Kennedy, killed in 1963, and two, Robert Kennedy was killed as he was running for President in 1968.

What exacerbated his alcoholism was a plane crash in the early sixties where he broke his back and was forever left with extreme pain and that "hunch and shuffle" kind of walk that became so distinctive. Back then there were not the pain relievers available today and many people chose to self-medicate through alcohol. Unfortunately, too much alcohol and eventually a person tips over into alcoholism as did Ted Kennedy.

To his credit, trying to sober up and do right again, that sad accident and tragic death of a young woman startled him into getting his act together. He went hard-charging into social reforms across the board. He led on education and health care reform right up until his death, fighting for better health care for twenty long years. Kennedy fought to shape America's political future for 50 years, leaving a longer-lasting legacy than both of his equally popular brothers combined. He was the brother of which the least was expected and he ended up doing the most for his country.

The lion-like Kennedy championed workers' rights, pushing to constantly raise the miserable minimum wage. He demanded civil rights and voting rights for African-Americans. Kennedy championed womens' rights and helped pushed the womens' movement into the public spotlight and into the heart of the Democratic Party. Lately, he was working on immigration reform in a more positive vein than the Republicans.

For decades his life was threatened by Republican supporters who constantly issued death threats if he ever dared to run for President. Even the military threatened to kill him if he did so. Such was the sixties and early seventies. To his credit, Kennedy ran anyway. He lost to unexpected dark horse Jimmy Carter who later became President Carter. Carter was doomed to become a one term president because he was outmaneuvered by Reagen. Behind his back while he was still President, it was candidate Reagen who traded guns for those American hostages in Iran. President Reagen created the Iranian Revolution and terrorist mess in Iran today from this foolish action. Reagen may have won the Presidency with his back-stabbing of a current sitting President but it's the next generation who had to deal with the consequences.

Senator Ted Kennedy's goodbye words were defiantly declared after that fateful loss to Carter and are appropriate all these years later as his epitaph: "The Work goes on, the Cause endures, the Hope still lives, and, the Dream never shall never die."

Kennedy was 77, passed away on Tuesday night from an extended illness with brain cancer. He will be greatly missed but his work was done. Now it is time for the next generation to lead. Thank you for your service, Ted, thank you, from a grateful nation...





President Obama bestows the Medal of Freedom upon Senator Ted Kennedy



Larry King interviews Kennedy about his life in the Senate back in 2006



Kennedy stood up for Obama when others were hesitant in the Democratic Party. Senator Edward Kennedy, the patriarch of the first family of Democratic politics, died at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.




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