Presidents are both products of their culture and powerful proponents of its most salient features. In the United States (and throughout much of the world), racism is imbedded in the society and culture. The extent to which United States presidents accepted racism and promoted it is part of the essential fabric of the nation.

This book presents the actual words written, spoken or signed by presidents of the United States since the Civil War. These quoted words speak for themselves and require no explanation beyond occasional brief commentaries.

The book includes an important essay that explains the existing historical forces that underlie racism and oppose the growth of democracy. It calls these forces the anti-democratic disease. The disease has a cure. The essay presents the ideas, founded in ethics, that would unravel the fabric of imbedded racism and propel the growth of real democracy.