Description
Book Synopsis"A powerful story, skillfully told." —
Booklist A new portrait of Robert Kennedy, a politician who, for all his faults, had the uncommon courage to stand up to a president from his own party and shine a light on America's shortcomings In early 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy ventured deep into the heart of Appalachia to gauge the progress of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. Kennedy viewed his two days in Kentucky as an opportunity to test his antiwar and antipoverty message with hardscrabble white voters.
Among the strip mines, one-room schoolhouses, and dilapidated homes, however, Kennedy encountered a strong mistrust and intense resentment of establishment politicians.
In
All This Marvelous Potential, author Matthew Algeo meticulously retraces RFK's tour of eastern Kentucky, visiting the places he visited and meeting with the people he met. Algeo explains how and why the region has changed since 1968, and why it matters for the rest of the country.
The similarities between then and now are astonishing: divisive politics, racial strife, economic uncertainty, and environmental alarm. Trade Review"A powerful story, skillfully told." -- Booklist
Table of ContentsRobert F. Kennedy’s Itinerary
Introduction
Part I: Before the Trip
Night
Dysgenics
Replace Their Despair
Tom Fletcher
An Article in Life
Poverty Obsessed
A Pioneer in Opposition Research
Part II: Tuesday, February 13, 1968
1:00 pm—Vortex
Swango Fugate
Black and Proud
Reverend Connie
Just Pee in This Jug
Sedition
2:30 pm—Barwick
Three Licks and a Smile
3:30 pm—Hazard
5:00 pm—Yellow Creek, A Guy Who Wears Horns
Hell, I’ll Handle This
A Prairie in the Mountains
7:00 pm—Pippa Passes, The Globe Woman
Reverend Baldridge
The Deepening Swamp
“Ulysses”
Campaign ’68
Lurleen
Part III: Wednesday, February 14, 1968
8:00 am—Whitesburg
A Winter Tan
To Cure Poverty
10:00 am—Neon, Waiting for Kennedy
Nell
Make Yourselves Comfortable
A Worm in a Miniskirt
The A.V.s
The Cloverfork Newsletter
The Average Homosexual
Paper Bags
The War on Welfare Queens
Dave Zegeer
The Zegeer Files
All the Girls
3:00 pm—Prestonsburg
From the Kentucky Coal Mines . . .
. . . to the California Sun
Part IV: After the Trip
Another Thing I Wish to Comment on Is Your Long Hair
I Knew Something Was Wrong
Cote’s Cemetery
Acknowledgments
Sources
Bibliography
Index
