March for Good Trouble

Review by Bill Doughty––

We remember Civil Rights icon John Lewis, whose life and legacy are being commemorated and celebrated this week.

"March: Book Three" is written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin with art by Nate Powell (Top Shelf Productions; 2016). It's a powerful "graphic novel" of nonfiction, and this is the best in the series.

The book opens with an explosion –– the bombing of the Sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, resulting in the murders of four young black girls: Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Denise McNair.

In the aftermath of the killings and in the midst of taunts of "2-4-6-8; we don't want to integrate," a group of white Eagle scouts, coming from a Ku Klux Klan rally, shot and killed 13-year-old Virgil Lamar Ware. Then, police shot 16-year-old Johnny Robinson.

It was 1963. John Lewis was only 23 years old and already a student leader in America's civil rights movement and an acolyte of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Like MLK, Lewis preached and practiced Gandhi-influenced nonviolence –– even in the face of deadly violence. Alabama Governor George Wallace had declared "segregation forever" and was quoted in a newspaper saying, "What this country needs is a few first-class funerals."

Lewis reflects on his grief over the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a man who had pledged greater civil rights. It took Kennedy's successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, to achieve JFK's goal. (Both presidents were Navy veterans.)

In "March 3" we are introduced to women of the movement and see the pivotal role they played in demonstrating, protesting and marching: Fannie Lou Hamer, Margaret Moore, Ella Baker, Amelia Boynton, Diane Nash, Annie Lee Cooper, and of course Rosa Parks. Another women, Viola Liuzzo, was shot dead while helping shuttle demonstrators.

Brave women and men, black and white, stood up to face heavily armed paramilitary police, some in an armored personnel carrier. Lewis was called an "outside agitator," even though he was as much an Alabama citizen, as was the sheriff. He and his fellow students, teachers and other demonstrators wanted free and equal access to the voting booth.

This book is a march through history, with stark images of violence and transcendent images and words of victory. Lewis's optimism, humility and grace shine through, as we see the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Summer of '64 in Mississippi, Bloody Sunday, March to Montgomery, and signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

This book shows Lewis's steadfast resilience and commitment in the face of severe beatings, lengthy arrests and constant threats. His demands for federal assistance ––not reliance on individual states' justice systems –– eventually paid off. So did his steadfast belief in nonviolence, "making good trouble –– necessary trouble."

LBJ said, "It's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome."

"March 3" poignantly includes memorable moments from January 20, 2009, the day Barack Obama became the first African American president. 

One of the illustrations is of United States Navy Band "Sea Chanters" chorus performing the national anthem.

Another is of Obama handing Lewis a thank you note, "Because of you, John" –– signed Barack Obama.

See Navy Reads posts related to or honoring John Lewis, namesake of USNS John Lewis.

An Armed Forces Body Bearer Team carries the flag draped casket of Rep. John Lewis, Dem.-Ga., at Joint Base Andrews, Md., July 27, 2020. DoD personnel are honoring the congressman by providing military funeral honors to his congressional funeral events. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Bridgitte Taylor)

An Armed Forces Body Bearer Team carries a flag-draped casket of Rep. John Lewis at the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C., July 27, 2020. The remains will lie in state on the East Front Steps of the Capitol for a public viewing. (U.S. Army photos by Spc. Zachery Perkins)

The Power of Hope … and Light

Review by Bill Doughty––

“Why do we struggle? Why must we, as members of the human family, immerse ourselves in the agency of turmoil and unrest to affect the evolution of humankind? Why participate in the work of justice at all?” With those words, the late U.S. Representative John Lewis frames the big picture of life. And he answers those questions in an illuminating way, filled with hope.

“I believe we are all a spark of the divine, and if that spark is nurtured it can become a burning flame, an eternal force of light,” Lewis explains in Reconciliation, the final chapter of his reflective “Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America” (Hachette Books; 2012, 2017).

“Thus, our purpose while we are here, in the most basic sense, is to be a light that shines –– to fully express our gifts so that others might see. When they witness our splendor, when we show them it is possible to shine radiantly even in the darkest night, they begin to remember that they are stars also, meant to light up the world. And if we are brilliant, like a Bobby Kennedy, a Martin Luther King Jr., a Jim Lawson, or a Fannie Lou Hamer, then the intensity of our flame can light the path of freedom for others.”

Lewis says we can "smolder with imagination, burn with creativity, reverberate with love, oneness, and peace. The infinite is possible, but this beauty can only manifest through us.”

Lewis calls for “forgiveness and compassion” in his message of hope, light, and unity. This is an inspiring autobiography of faith, patience, action and love –– which are just some of the chapter names. This book is a great companion to the graphic biography trilogy, “March,” and offers more than a dozen photos along Lewis’s enlightened life’s path.

There is a certain power in an autobiography that a third-person biography cannot achieve as easily. Nevertheless, master historian Jon Meacham comes close in “His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope” (Random House; 2020).

Meacham dedicates the book “for all who toil and fight and live and die to realize the true meaning of America’s creed.” Like Lewis in “Across That Bridge,” Meacham lauds heroes of the civil rights movement and contextualizes Lewis’s life in the promises of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, acknowledging the founders’ limitations in their space and time.

“If the framers were about limits, Lewis was about horizons. The men who wrote the Constitution believed that human appetites and ambitions were the controlling forces of history. Lewis believed hope shaped history –– the hope that Lincoln’s better angels could prevail if men and women heeded the still, small voice of conscience that suggested the country, and the world, would be better off if Jefferson’s assertion of human equality were truly universal.”

Meacham’s book opens in a terror-filled South of rape, beatings, lynchings, and other forms of dehumanizing African Americans, in a nation overcoming a depression and focused on a world war.

“Blood and death, pain and loss, sacrifice and the hope of redemption: Lewis was coming of age in the most intense of eras, an era the made this young black man in the South something of a child of wartime. George H.W. Bush –– who joined the U.S. Navy on his eighteenth birthday, married when he was twenty, and had his first child by the time he was twenty-two –– once explained the urgency of his generation of World War II veterans as a result of ‘heightened awareness, a sense that everything mattered, that life was to be lived, in Bush’s phrase, ‘on the edge.’ ‘It was a time of uncertainty,’ Bush recalled.”

Civil Rights icons and touchstones Rosa Parks and Emmitt Till

Veterans returning from the war demanded greater equality in society. Lewis was dramatically influenced by the horrible murder of Emmett Till. He was inspired by the heroism of Rosa Parks. He was appalled by the murder of “a kinsman of Lewis’s, Dr. Thomas Brewer,” a voting rights advocate who was shot to death while protesting police brutality. Lewis aligned with Martin Luther King against Strom Thurmond and Dixiecrats who suppressed votes and denied equality to black Americans.

As shown in this biography and in “March,” the highlight of Lewis’s life was attending the inauguration of Barack Obama and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the first African American U.S. president.

Meacham does a thorough job of showing Lewis’s struggles and achievements. His epilogue, “Against the Rulers of the Darkness,” seems to be a nod to Lewis’s own call for people to find their own inner light. 

Meacham’s book is good, but the hope and light shine brightest in Lewis’s own words.

WASHINGTON (Jan. 6, 2016) Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Ray Mabus signs a graphic representation of the future fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Lewis (T-AO 205) after naming the ship in honor of U.S. Representative John Lewis, a civil rights movement hero. USNS John Lewis will be the first ship of the Navy's newest generation of fleet replenishment oilers. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Armando Gonzales/Released)

Navigating Now in 'Sea of Despair'

Review by Bill Doughty––

In these troubled times we can and should consider advice from good, principled leaders.

Then-Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Ray Mabus speaks with civil rights hero and U.S. Representative of the Fifth District of Georgia, John Lewis, Jan. 6, 2016, before the ship-naming ceremony for the future fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Lewis (T-AO 205). USNS John Lewis will be the first ship of the Navy's newest generation of fleet replenishment oilers. Photo by Mass Communication Specialist Second Class Armando Gonzales)

The most respected living civil rights leader, Representative John Lewis of Georgia, asked Americans today on the Morning Joe show to "not get lost in a sea of despair but to keep the faith" and be "true to the cause of love, peace and nonviolence." (Read another moving statement from Lewis at the end of this post.)

This week, after witnessing the horror of racially charged events –– including the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmad Aubrey –– I turned to a book by Melvin G. Williams Sr. and Melvin G. Williams Jr., "Navigating the Seven Seas: Leadership Lessons of the first African American Father and Son to Serve at the Top in the U.S. Navy" (Naval Institute Press, 2011).

The book has been a perennial recommendation on the Navy Professional Reading Program. It serves as a lighthouse of inspiration with advice on character, courage and commitment as well as other key qualities needed to be a good leader, citizen and sailor.

Williams Sr. is a retired Command Master Chief who was in charge of the SECNAV-CNO Flag Mess at the Pentagon and played a pivotal role in helping further integrate the Navy in the late 60s, including providing advice and inspiration to ADM Elmo Zumwalt Jr., then-Chief of Naval Operations.


All Hands Update "Legacy of Service" interview with Williamses about diversity in the Navy. Hosted by PO2 Patrick Gearhiser. (DVIDS)

ADM John C. Harvey Jr. publicly commended retired Master Chief Williams in 2010 saying, "You served your Navy and your nation with honor and distinction for over twenty-seven years, during a period of time when you loved your Navy far more than your Navy loved you. You never lost faith that someday, the Navy you loved so much and served so well would take the steps that had to be taken and allow a sailor's talent to be the sole measure of what a sailor can do." Williams Sr. served in the Navy for 27 years.

Vice Adm. Mel Williams Jr., commander of U.S. 2nd Fleet, salutes sideboys aboard the guided-missile frigate USS Halyburton (FFG 40) April 28, 2010 during a ship visit while Halyburton is in port for Fleet Week Port Everglades for a celebration of the maritime services. (Photo by Seaman Travis J. Kuykendall)

Williams Jr., served as a submarine officer and aboard surface ships and aircraft carriers for 32 years. He achieved the rank of vice admiral and commanded the U.S. Second Fleet, leading sailors and Marines. He coordinated closely with NATO, where he helped develop and publish the first maritime counter-piracy tactics and contributed to NATO maritime security operations.

Williams Jr. recounts his childhood briefly in "Navigating the Seven Seas":

"I arrived on this Earth in November 1955, about one month before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. As an African American male who grew up in the United States when equal opportunity for all people was beginning, I felt a personal imperative to have the integrity and determination to fulfill the obligation that I truly believed I had to realize the dreams of those courageous African Americans who had come before me. I was not alone in this belief, which many African Americans in my generation shared."

Father and son discuss their book, "Navigating the Seven Seas"

Williams Jr. said his family instilled respect for hard work and education as well as "traits including integrity, determination, a positive attitude, fairness, a personable disposition, humility, and the elements of servant leadership."

Like all military families, there were moves and new schools. In 1968 the family moved to Washington D.C., where thirteen-year-old Mel Jr. "absorbed pivotal events of that year": Vietnam War, Tet Offensive, assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, racial riots, and Mexico City Olympics.

This book is part double-autobiography, part guide to good leadership. The "Seven Seas" is a "nautical play on words," representing the maritime global commons to show how to navigate as a leader through Seven Cs:

• Character: The first and most essential of the Cs, trumping all others –– "the commitment to take right and timely action repeatedly toward realizing the vision are central to leadership."
• Competence: "A leader must be competent as he or she guides the organization."
• Courage: "Leaders should consider the facts, opinions of a diverse group, instincts and intuition, and be decisive at the right time."
• Commitment: Developing people to their full potential, trusting others, and delegating authority are essential to being a good leader.
• Caring: Serving others is caring for others, ensuring they have "needed resources."
• Communicating: "People want to be inspired by the leader" who must "develop forward-looking plans with the team, and take action while creating a sense of urgency."
• Community: "With better-prepared and developed individuals, the leader works to create a cohesive team, so that the whole is greater than the sum of the individuals."

Williams Sr.'s great-grandparents on both sides were born into slavery. The veteran of the Korean War, Vietnam War and Cold War Navy nurtured a culture of love, empathy and servant leadership in his family and within his circle of influence in the Navy.

The authors provide quotes from Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, Booker T. Washington, Thomas Paine, Lao Tzu, Albert Einstein, and others.

Among those they name in their acknowledgements (as listed): Barry Danforth, James L. Holloway III, Hugh McCracken, Elmo Zumwalt Jr., Chuck Beers, Skip Bowman, James Cartwright, Kirk Donald, Jerry Ellis, Malcolm Fages, Ed Giambastiani, the Golden Thirteen, Samuel Gravely, Mike Mullen, B.J. Penn, Hyman G. Rickover, Gary Roughead and Carl Trost.

Current and past Chiefs of Naval Operations (CNO) came to the Pentagon for the unveiling of the CNO portraits, 26 June 1986. Left to right: Admiral James L. Holloway III, USN (Retired); Admiral Carlisle A.H. Trost, USN, CNO Designate; Admiral Robert B. Carney, USN (Retired); Admiral Thomas B. Hayward, USN (Retired); Admiral James D. Watkins, USN, then-CNO; Admiral George W. Anderson, USN (Retired), seated; Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., USN (Retired); Admiral David L. McDonald, USN (Retired); Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, USN (Retired); and Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, USN (Retired). (NHHC)

Along with the Seven Cs, the authors highlight the Navy's Core Values (including two of the Cs): Honor, Courage and Commitment. "Courage" comes up time and again in "Navigating the Seven Seas."

Williams Jr. writes, "Throughout history, the men and women who serve in the armed forces in defense of freedom, human rights, and the rule of law have been leaders who routinely demonstrate courage." He adds, "We, the beneficiaries of freedom, should be grateful to these courageous leaders. I am."

In 2020, do we have the courage to confront inequality, achieve fundamental systemic police reform as well as protect the community by demanding nonviolence? In protesting injustice, anger is justified; violence is not.

John Lewis is a courageous leader in civil rights. He calls for peace and nonviolence in the face of riots happening in 2020 so we are not "lost in a sea of despair."

Rep. John Lewis (D Ga.) dons protective gear as he prepares to weld his initials into the keel plate of his namesake ship during the keel laying ceremony of USNS John Lewis at the General Dynamics Shipyard in San Diego, May 13, 2019. (Photo by Sarah Burford)

Statement by Rep. John Lewis, Congressman from Georgia's 5th District:

"Sixty-five years have passed, and I still remember the face of young  Emmett Till. It was 1955. I was 15 years old — just a year older than him. What happened that summer in Money, Mississippi, and the months that followed — the recanted accusation, the sham trial, the dreaded verdict — shocked the country to its core. And it helped spur a series of non-violent events by everyday people who demanded better from our country.

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial (NPS)

“Despite real progress, I can't help but think of young Emmett today as I watch video after video after video of unarmed Black Americans being killed, and falsely accused. My heart breaks for these men and women, their families, and the country that let them down — again. My fellow Americans, this is a special moment in our history. Just as people of all faiths and no faiths, and all backgrounds, creeds, and colors banded together decades ago to fight for equality and justice in a peaceful, orderly, non-violent fashion, we must do so again.

“To the rioters here in Atlanta and across the country: I see you, and I hear you. I know your pain, your rage, your sense of despair and hopelessness. Justice has, indeed, been denied for far too long. Rioting, looting, and burning is not the way. Organize. Demonstrate. Sit-in. Stand-up. Vote. Be constructive, not destructive. History has proven time and again that non-violent, peaceful protest is the way to achieve the justice and equality that we all deserve.

“Our work won't be easy — nothing worth having ever is — but I strongly believe, as Dr. King once said, that while the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice.” –– May 30, 2020

USNS John Lewis

By Bill Doughty

Last week the United States Navy honored late Congressman John Lewis with the christening of USNS John Lewis (T-AO 205), the Military Sealift Command’s newest fleet replenishment oiler. Former Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus was among the dignitaries present. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi was the keynote speaker. “John was a man of great courage and a fighter. He was always about nonviolence,” Pelosi said. “Non-violence and insistence on the truth. John always insisted on the truth.” In her remarks Pelosi recalled that one year ago Lewis, a hero of the civil rights movement, lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda on the same catafalque built for Abraham Lincoln, Lewis’s hero. A new book of John Lewis wisdom by his former chief of staff, Michael Collins, is out now: “Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation.” Chapters include "On Courage" and "On Voting." in an interview on Good Morning America, Collins notes that Lewis fought against racism and hatred, and he stood for optimism, joy, and a new generation of hope.

Selma March II; 'Our Military at its Best'

by Bill Doughty

John Lewis in 1965

President Lyndon B. Johnson, a World War II Navy veteran and Navy reservist, called for Navy divers to help search for missing victims of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Fifty years ago, after activists were gassed and beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on "Bloody Sunday," LBJ called in military resources to protect demonstrators.

The bridge was named for a Confederate general, Alabama Senator and KKK leader. It became a battlefield defended by Alabama state police against people who wanted equality and the right to vote. 
LBJ directed the military to protect the demonstrators who refused to give up their march for democratic ideals.

The second attempt to march across the bridge was a success and, according to Congressman John Lewis, a turning point in what he calls a revolution of values and ideas.

Two weeks earlier, Lewis was among those who were clubbed, gassed and trampled by horses. Recently, he told Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation that he thought he would die. But Lewis expressed his gratitude for the military's protection of the march from Selma to Montgomery. He also told Schieffer how extraordinary it was to hear FBI Director Comey voice his support for transparency and accountability of law enforcement.

LBJ's military was there "all along the way. People inspecting the bridges along the way. Guarding the camps at night. It was our military. It was our military at its best," Lewis said.

Demonstrators, white and black, marched peacefully for equality and against discrimination in the voting process, where African Americans were singled out for tests on literacy, knowledge or character in order to restrict their ability to register to vote.  They were forced to try to answer ridiculous questions like, "How many bubbles are in a bar of soap?" When they attempted to vote regardless, they were blocked or beaten.
In LBJ's speech before Congress on Voting Rights delivered March 15, 1965 he made several references to the military:

"At times, history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama. 
"... As we meet here in this peaceful historic chamber tonight, men from the South, some of whom were at Iwo Jima, men from the North who have carried Old Glory to the far corners of the world and who brought it back without a stain on it, men from the east and from the west are all fighting together without regard to religion or color or region in Vietnam."

Congressman Lewis, who led the original march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge 50 years ago, and who is marching with Commander in Chief President Barack Obama this week, recounts his experience for young people in a graphic novel series called "March."
Book 1 starts with Lewis as a boy growing up in rural Alabama and takes us through his meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the death of Emmett Till, the activism of Rosa Parks, and interracial lunch counter demonstrations to achieve equality and integration.  Book 2 of "March" was recently published, and Book 3 is on its way.
In 2012, Lewis published "Across that Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change."

Douglas Brinkley, who wrote "Across that Bridge's" introduction, calls Lewis an "apostle of quiet strength." He says, "Every young person should read this homily of civility, a welcome antidote to the noisy chatter of self indulgence exemplified by the surge of me-me-me social media in our lives."

Lewis, himself, lives in the light of Dr. King. He writes with poetic flair:

"Lean toward the whisper of your own heart, discover the universal truth, and follow its dictates. Know the truth always leads to love and the perpetuation of peace. Its products are never bitterness and strife."

Navy veteran President Johnson shakes hands with Dr. King after signing Voting Rights Act.

Johnson seemed to listen to what Lincoln described as "the better angels of our nature" in LBJ's speech 50 years ago. He echoed the nonviolence themes of "we shall overcome," and he called for all Americans to live up to the ideals of the Constitution as he obviously considered his own place in history:

"We must preserve the right to free assembly ... We do have a right to protest. And a right to march under conditions that do not infringe the Constitutional rights of our neighbors. And I intend to protect all those rights as long as I am permitted to serve in this office.
"We will guard against violence, knowing it strikes from our hands the very weapons which we seek – progress, obedience to law, and belief in American values. In Selma, as elsewhere, we seek and pray for peace. We seek order, we seek unity, but we will not accept the peace of stifled rights or the order imposed by fear, or the unity that stifles protest – for peace cannot be purchased at the cost of liberty.
"I want to be the president who educated young children to the wonders of their world. I want to be the President who helped to feed the hungry and to prepare them to be taxpayers instead of tax eaters. I want to be the President who helped the poor to find their own way and who protected the right of every citizen to vote in every election. I want to be the President who helped to end hatred among his fellow men and who promoted love among the people of all races, all regions and all parties. I want to be the President who helped to end war among the brothers of this earth."

United States Congressman John Lewis was 23 years old, about the average age of a shipboard Sailor today, when he helped lead the march in Selma. 

The graphic novel "March" fittingly portrays him speaking to young people and explaining how he came to appreciate life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

His perspective on where we were, how far we've come and the role of the military in the defense of freedom is invaluable.

McChrysal: Reality of Sailor Harriet Tubman

Review by Bill Doughty

A standout essay in General Stanley McChrystal's latest book, "Leaders: Myth and Reality" (Portfolio/Penguin, 2018) begins on a Union Navy vessel in the littorals of the Deep South during the heart of the Civil War.

"As she boarded the USS John Adams that evening, the white officers tipped their caps to the black woman they knew as 'Moses.' Apart from this polite gesture, she was paid no special attention. The 300 troops had business to take care of, and Harriet Tubman was a part of that team, with duties of her own."

Colonel James Montgomery, who commanded the 2nd South Carolina Volunteer Regiment, relied on Tubman – who had been serving as a nurse and spy for the Union Army – to guide him, his officers and 300 mostly black troops twenty-five miles up the Combahee River. They left from Beaufort, South Carolina to destroy Confederate communication and supplies and free slaves if possible.

USS John Adams depicted (in 1846)

"When the boats set off upriver, Tubman, as head scout, assumed her place next to Colonel Montgomery. It's an incongruous scene: a five-foot-tall, forty-one-year-old black woman going on a raid to free slaves in the middle of the Civil War. Heading to a battle, the officers and soldiers of the 2nd South Carolina didn't show concern with the symbolism of a middle-aged, formerly enslaved woman wearing a dress amid all the men in blue uniforms. All they cared about was her competence as a scout."

In terse prose that attempts to separate fact from myth, McChrystal and his co-authors Jeff Eggers and Jason Mangone show the difficulties Tubman faced as a slave before she escaped to become a matriarch and leader of the abolitionist movement.

She suffered separations, beatings and brain damage that left her with stupors, seizures and religious visions.

"According to a journalist who wrote about Tubman in 1863, her head injury made her 'subject to a sort of stupor or lethargy at times; coming upon her in the midst of conversation, or whatever she may be doing, and throwing her into a deep slumber, from which she will presently rouse herself, and go on with her conversation or work.' Though Tubman and her family were deeply religious well before her head injury, her skull fracture marks the time when Tubman began having religious visions, which would stay with her for the remaining eighty years of her life and contributed to what she felt was her calling."

Despite her challenges, Tubman made 13 trips into the Deep South during the 1850s as part of the Underground Railroad, a support network of black and white ministers, freethinkers and others opposed to the sin of slavery. Each trip was 450 miles both ways, and the slaves had to travel to Canada or risk being caught and returned.

Tubman is recognized for her leadership qualities of "modesty, duty, perfect truthfulness and integrity." She built relationships and valued cooperation, but she could also be fearless and demanding.

Congressman John Lewis

McChrystal's dedication of this book is: "To John Lewis and John McCain, who remind us that it's possible to keep our humanity while leading with courage and commitment."

The eclectic leaders profiled by the authors include geniuses like Albert Einstein, zealots like Maximilien Robespierre, and reformers like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., among others.

McChrystal and his co-authors offer no clear and simple formulas on being a leader. "It is our hope that by helping to dismantle some common myths we will create space for you and other leaders to interact with reality and respond to your challenges with clear thinking and humility."

In the book's prologue, McChrystal writes, "Finally, by itself, 'Leaders' will not make you into a great leader. It won't overcome weak values, a lack of self-discipline, or personal stupidity. Instead of simplifying the challenges of leading, 'Leaders' will outline and underscore the complexities."

McChrystal and his team offer no paint-by-numbers formulas for being a good leader. They recommend dismantling common myths in order to "interact with reality and respond to your challenges with clear thinking and humility."

Frederick Douglass

To highlight the Tubman essay, McChrystal and his co-authors choose a quote from former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Part of Douglass's quote becomes a "found" haiku:

what you have done would

seem improbable to those

who do not know you

In the book's prologue, McChrystal concludes, "Finally, by itself, 'Leaders' will not make you into a great leader. It won't overcome weak values, a lack of self-discipline, or personal stupidity. Instead of simplifying the challenge of leading, 'Leaders' will outline and underscore the complexities."

Union Sailor George Commodore, 

"Leaders" recommends reading Joseph Campbell, Churchill, Plutarch and tales of Greek and Roman heroes. In fact, the book starts with McChrystal's love of reading.  For the Tubman essay, he recommends Kate Clifford Larson's "Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero" (One World, 2003).

The best leaders are good readers.

Postscript: Interest in this topic and how African Americans served in the Navy in the Civil War led me to this essay by Joseph P. Reidy in Prologue Magazine, online at the National Archives: "Black Men in Navy Blue During the Civil War." 

Military Role in Fascism ‘Prequel’

Review by Bill Doughty––

It wasn’t until Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war on the United States in December 1945, that the burning embers of fascism dimmed and hot coals of active antisemitism, Christian nationalism, and Nazi support –– even in the U.S. Congress –– lost their glow.

But the fire never completely went cold.

Prior to World War II and even after, brave Americans sought to root out the supporters of fascism who went so far as to try to recruit members of the military as well as military veterans to their cause. One fighter of domestic fascism was a WWI veteran named Leon Lewis. 

Lewis sought to uncover a conspiracy of violent extremism targeting Jewish Americans and institutions. It’s one of the stories recounted in “Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism” by Rachel Maddow (Crow, Penguin Random House, 2023).

“What Leon Lewis decided to do was something incredible. And incredibly dangerous. He went out and recruited a small group of men, picked from the exact same pool the Nazis were after –– disgruntled non-Jewish American veterans of the recent war [World War I],” Maddow writes.

“But the Lewis operation did more than simply investigate and report. Before long, Lewis and his team scuttled a plot by U.S. Marines to sell guns and ammunition to the American fascists. Lewis and his underground team could not be credited in public for their part in this operation, but it did earn them the enduring and crucial admiration of high-ranking naval intelligence officers. They also exposed an elaborate inside-job scheme to take control of U.S. military armories on the West Coast. That plan was run by Dietrich Gefken, a German national who had been one of the early organizers of Hitler’s Brownshirts in Munich. After joining the California National Guard and inventorying the cache of rifles, machine guns, and coastal artillery pieces on hand at the San Francisco armory, Gefken had drawn up ‘the Armory plans, floor plans, location of ammunition and lockers and rifles, the list of addresses of the officers and all that was needed to take over the Armory on a given notice.’ Lewis’s spies handed over their evidence of Gefken’s plot to military intelligence officials, who shut it down.”

How Naval intelligence officers at the Navy base in San Diego helped bring the wider plot to light is almost an aside, but the story should be of great interest to military readers.

On the East Coast, more than 20,000 people attended an antisemitic pro-Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939. One of the banners visible in the above photo reads, "Stop Jewish Domination of Christian America." The rally was dubbed a patriotic pro-American event tied, without irony, to George Washington’s birthday. [General/President Washington rejected calls from supporters to become dictator of the young United States.]

How could the rising flames of fascism in the United States in the 1930s be forgotten in time? In interviews promoting “Prequel,” Maddow notes how the bigger story of the war in Europe (and the Pacific) eclipsed the story of homegrown fascism and Nazism and the quiet patriots who battled the threat to democracy here.

Brave and truly patriotic men such as Lewis, O. John Rogge, Dillard Stokes, Henry Hoke, Eric Sevareid, Drew Pearson, and William Power Maloney stood up and spoke out against antisemitism and against indifference and obstruction by the Truman Administration, as demonstrated by Attorney General Francis Biddle and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

Federal prosecutor Rogge

“The plain truth is that the FBI was missing in action as fascism and Nazism took root and grew  in the United States in the mid-1930s,” Maddow notes.

Despite having the rug pulled out from under them in their prosecution of the fascists, both Maloney and Rogge continued with honor, courage, and commitment to uncover and report domestic enemies and violent extremists.

“Maloney and his investigators had discovered the double helix of the violent, Nazi-supporting, and Nazi-supported threat in the United States; it was part foreign and part domestic, part propaganda and part armed paramilitary movement.” He had led the investigation into Nazi propagandists using frank privileges at taxpayers’ expense. After federal service, he continued a career as a colorful and successful prosecutor.

“Rogge’s new charging document, like Maloney’s, alleged violations of the Smith Act –– an effort to demoralize America’s armed forces. But Rogge had sharpened the case, alleging targeted effort by the defendants to recruit National Guardsmen, reservists, and even active-duty U.S. troops into these ultra-right groups, where they could use their military skills, connections, and access to weapons to help arm and train paramilitary fascists for the overthrow of the U.S. government.”

Rogge uncovered evidence against American fascists and Nazi-supporters when he provided support to the Nuremberg trials after the war.

Men of character like Lewis, Rogge, Stokes, Hoke and others were seemingly outnumbered by questionable characters –– men (and some women) who placed greed, power, and religion above the Constitution, people like:

• George Deatherage: “He saw himself a red-blooded, real-American patriot, a dedicated Christian, a fierce protector of (white) Western civilization.”
• Huey Long: This Louisiana politician was an early version of the charismatic narcissistic populist and would-be dictator who formed his own militia and embraced violence against his detractors.
• Father Charles Coughlin: The Rush Limbaugh or Alex Jones of his generation, he was a Catholic priest with a wildly popular radio show who called for violence against “tyrants” after naming FDR and jews as tyrants.
• John Cassidy: He was a self-described "Christian martyr" who wanted to become the "American Fuhrer."
• Senator Ernest Lundeen (R) of Minnesota: Was as corrupt as they come, even taking payroll kickbacks from his own staff, instrumental in promoting support for Hitler in America. Maddow’s description of his death in a suspicious plane crash is as graphic and horrible as can be imagined. Readers may want to look away.
• George Sylvester Viereck: The Nazi agent. He was convicted in June 1943 for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. While he was in jail, Viereck's eldest son and namesake, a corporal in the U.S. Army, fought and died for the Allies in Italy.
• Major General George Van Horn Moseley: He was pro-gun but against FDR and anti-redistribution of wealth; he called for the sterilization of any jews who immigrated to the United States.
• Senator Robert Rice Reynolds (D) of North Carolina: He wanted to build a wall around the entire United States, in part to keep out Jews.
• Representative Hamilton Fish (R) of New York: He supported Hitler’s Germany and “was hopeful that tensions over Germany’s designs on Poland could be resolved peacefully, and that Germany’s claims were ‘just.’” His calls: “AWAKE CHRISTIAN AMERICA” and “LET’S SAVE U.S. FOR US.”
• Senator William “Wild Bill” Langer (R) of North Dakota: As governor he was charged, convicted, and sentenced to 18 months in prison, but who declared martial law and tried to declare North Dakota’s independence from the United States. As senator, he sabotaged the investigation of rising fascism.
• Senator Burton K. Wheeler (D) of Montana: an isolationist and propagandist for Germany who was eventually accused of treason. He attempted to use his position in Congress to influence the military, especially the Lend-Lease Act, and prevent America’s support to Britain in WWII.
• Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh: Both were champions of Adolf Hitler and vice versa. Lindbergh zeig heiled at an America First rally with Wheeler. Ford was lauded by Adolf Hitler, who kept a photo of the white Christian nationalist CEO in his office.

America Firsters Wheeler and Lindbergh

There were many more who sought to weaken the Constitution and democracy in favor of autocracy and theocracy.

Expressions of outright antisemitism and fascism by elected officials led to plots of violence on the home front.

Groups such as the “Christian Front” and “Country Gentlemen” planned an armed insurrection, including bombings of Jewish and Leftist establishments as well as newspaper offices. Their hope was similar to Timothy McVeigh’s goal –– to start a race war that would bring down the federal government.

“It was what we’d call today an ‘accelerationist’ strategy,” Maddow explains.

“Much as white supremacists hope terroristic, spectacular, cruel acts toward racial minorities will provoke retaliation and reprisal to touch off a wholesale race war that they are sure they will win, the Christian Fronters believed American could easily be tipped into a war against Jews and communists in which they themselves not only would end up on the winning side, but would be hailed as a heroic vanguard.

“George Van Horn Moseley’s name kept coming up in planning meetings for the attack, because they were still counting on the general to take the reins as America’s new military dictator after the coup was complete.”

There are numerous parallels from the 1930s and ‘40s that continue to smolder: the coup attempt of January 6, other acts of violent extremism in the name of the former President (who calls opponents “vermin” that poison the “blood” of America), and Trump’s desire to call for the Insurrection Act in order to use the military against U.S. citizens in violation of posse comitatus.

Germany justified war in Europe based on grievances and a Big Lie about Jews. Putin did the same thing. And Trump builds his power and funding on perceived grievances and the Big Lie of a stolen election. It is no accident that Trump launched his current presidential campaign at Waco, Texas, on the 30th anniversary of the Branch Davidian tragedy, which was the basis for Timothy McVeigh's grievances.

There are other parallels and similarities linking past and present. Accusers and their two dozen or more sympathizers in Congress chose to investigate the investigators. They called for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s impeachment based on conspiracies and conjecture without evidence. They used various tactics to disrupt and delay justice in the courts. And they attacked the free press.

The propagandists supported Germany’s efforts to divide American citizens: “A partisan, bickering, demoralized America, the Nazis believed, would be incapable of mounting a successful war effort in Europe.”

Fascists and fundamentalists –– past and present –– tried to recruit military service members and veterans. Eighty and ninety years ago a disproportionate number of law enforcement (“law and ORDER”) personnel supported fascists. Meanwhile, Hollywood –– led by MGM –– and the mainstream media –– led by the Washington Post –– shined a light on the lawbreakers and seditionists. When caught up in the scandal, perpetrators tried to burn evidence, (albeit not in a White House fireplace).

In 1942, federal prosecutors indicted 28 people and charged them (almost RICO-style) with sedition with “intent to interfere with, impair, and influence the loyalty, morale, and discipline of the military and naval forces of the United States.” Prosecutors received hate mail and death threats.

Greedy and self-serving politicians stoked conspiracies and fears to hold on to power, especially fear of immigrants, communists, socialists, and Jewish people. Father Coughlin and others attempted to form a third party of Christian nationalists to compete against President Roosevelt, claiming FDR was a Jew.

But there could be signs of hope: The election of Nov. 7, 1944 proved the strength of democracy over the glowing coals of fascism, when FDR won a landslide victory. “The president who had been leading the country in the war against the Nazis, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, won an unprecedented fourth term, with 432 electoral votes to Thomas E. Dewey’s 99,” Maddow writes. “Roosevelt’s Democrats gained twenty-two seats in the House and protected their whopping nineteen-vote cushion in the Senate.”

Rachel Maddow speaks with Lt. Col. Andy Gerlach of the South Dakota Army National Guard in Afghanistan in July 2010. (Sgt. Rebecca Linder)

Maddow is also author of “Bagman” and “Drift.” She is a big supporter of military service members, veterans, and the Constitution. She bemoans the gap between civilians and their military, and she calls for accountability, transparency, and maximal diplomacy before American men and women are sent into war.

Both the Prequel book and preceding Ultra podcast feature Maddow’s storytelling at its best, but the book may better. While the serialized Prequel podcast broke ground on the compelling story of the threat to democracy from within, the book really fleshes out the story as only a book can, complete with extensive notes, a helpful index, compelling photos, and detail we can read and will want to re-read. This is a book that can help every American understand the threat of the fires of antisemitism, fascism, and authoritarianism.

In 2023 and 2024 the embers are glowing brighter.