10/05/2012 - Myclipp

USA Today/ - On Politics, Sáb, 12 de Maio de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)
Column: Katzenbach civil rights legacy
lives on today
Tuesday night, this country lost one of its national
heroes. For those who grew up in the '60s, Nicholas
Katzenbach, who was 90, was a household name. For
today's generation, it is a forgotten name. Yet the lives
we lead today would be drastically different if it weren't
for the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of
1964 and the Voting Rights Bill of 1965. Katzenbach
was one of the key architects behind that legislation
and more.
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In some sense, it is ironic that on the day it was
learned that an unsung hero of the civil rights
movement died, the president of the United States, the
first African-American, advocated his support for
same-sex marriage — the next battleground for
equality.
As Robert Kennedy's deputy attorney general, it was
Katzenbach whom the Kennedy administration relied
on to craft legislation and quell crisis after crisis.
Katzenbach was the ranking government official
dispatched to represent the attorney general, and the
president, when James Meredith enrolled at the
University of Mississippi.
The following year, it was Katzenbach who was sent to
another college campus to enforce the integration of
the University of Alabama by two African-American
students, James Hood and Vivian Malone (who would
later become the sister-in-law of current Attorney
General Eric Holder).
Reflections by Holder
The impressions that Katzenbach made on a
12-year-old Holder were everlasting. \"When I became
deputy in 1997, Nick Katzenbach was a person who by
then, I never met, but whom I knew from history,\"
Holder told me during an interview last year. \"One of
the things I always do as I take these jobs is try to
think about who my predecessors are and what they
do well. … As I thought about what I wanted to do as
deputy, I wanted to be a force beyond simply making
sure that the ship was running on time, and I took that
from the experience of having seen (Katzenbach)
playing such a pivotal role in a historical event.\"
The photo of that historic confrontation — between a
short and stocky segregationist governor, George
Wallace, and a tall balding government official,
Katzenbach, has become an iconic image of the
struggle for civil rights. On that hot June day in 1963,
Wallace planned to seize the opportunity to highlight
himself and his cause. But what he didn't expect was
to be upstaged by a 6'2 man who called it like he saw it
— \"a show.\"
Katzenbach always called it like he saw it. He didn't
mince words; he was a straight shooter, and he
accomplished something few others can say. He was
the rare individual who was trusted by rivals Robert
Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. He was part of Bobby
Kennedy's inner circle, and later succeeded Kennedy
as LBJ's attorney general. For Johnson to appoint a
Kennedy man in the position spoke volumes about
Katzenbach. Katzenbach was his own man, guided by
the principles of the U.S. Constitution. In recent
years, he was beside himself over the Citizens United
ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. Even in his later
years, he never lost his love of the law.
His father's footsteps
In pursuing the law he emulated his father, who was
the state attorney general of New Jersey and died
when Katzenbach was just 12 years old.
Katzenbach endured his own struggle for freedom
when he was shot down in a B-25 over the
Mediterranean and spent 27 months as a POW during
World War II. While he was stymied by the confines of
prison, he maximized his time by reading hundreds of
books, including legal tomes, so he could return to the
U.S. and earn his bachelor's degree from Princeton
University and pursue his dream of becoming a lawyer.
He accomplished both.
When Katzenbach wanted to work for the Kennedy
administration, he turned to Yale Law School
classmate Byron White. Katzenbach's eyes were set
not on the Department of Justice, but rather the State
Department. Ironically, that is where Katzenbach
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