A Terrible Thing to Waste

This book traces the life of Arthur Fletcher, a genial dynamo who, after running unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor of Washington State, rose high in the national Republican party. While championing African American entrepreneurship and opposing racial segregation, Fletcher clung steadfastly to the Gop throughout his career, despite its propensity for what Richard M. Nixon's presidential adviser John Ehrlichman called “liberal zags and conservative zigs” in Republican presidential policies related to civil rights. Leveraging his position as undersecretary of labor in the Nixon administration, Fletcher promoted the Philadelphia Plan and the Revised Philadelphia Plan—early efforts at affirmative action that aimed to integrate the construction trades, which often discriminated against African Americans. White workers in hard hats ardently resisted these plans, creating flash points in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Seattle that Fletcher sought to address. After serving under President Gerald R. Ford as deputy assistant for urban affairs, Fletcher failed to garner an important post under President Ronald Reagan, whose administration, David Hamilton Golland explains, proved “abysmal for civil rights.” Both before and after becoming president, however, George H. W. Bush cultivated a friendship with Fletcher. Despite the infamous Willie Horton Tv ad that helped elect Bush by appealing to white racist fears, Fletcher clung to his friend, who tapped him to chair the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. As Golland notes, both former president Richard M. Nixon and Jesse Jackson congratulated Fletcher on the appointment. Bush then zigged conservative by vetoing an affirmative action bill, zigged conservative again by nominating Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, then zagged liberal by signing an affirmation action law that strongly resembled the vetoed bill

Administration (probate law · Affirmative action · Art history · George (robot · Governor · Political science · Politics · Presidential system · Sociology · State (computer science · White (mutation · Engineering · History · Law · Public Administration · Race, History, and American Society