E-mail a friendRoger Wilkins
airdate April 29, 2009
An attorney, professor and longtime social activist, Roger Wilkins has worked in both the public and private sectors. He interned with Thurgood Marshall and later became the highest-ranking African American in President Johnson's Justice Department. He served on the editorial boards of both the Washington Post—where he won a Pulitzer—and The New York Times. He's also written two acclaimed books, made two documentaries and taught at George Mason University. Wilkins is publisher of the NAACP's journal, The Crisis.
Publisher for the NAACP's Crisis magazine talks about how President Obama is repairing America's reputation around the world. (2:28)
Full interview. (10:30)
Roger Wilkins
Tavis: As we look at President Obama's first 100 days in office I'm pleased and honored to be joined this evening by Roger Wilkins. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, history professor and veteran civil rights leader is the publisher of the NAACP's terrific magazine, "The Crisis."
He's also a former assistant attorney general under Lyndon Johnson. At that time he was one of the highest-ranking African Americans to ever serve in the U.S. government. He joins us tonight from Washington. Professor Wilkins, an honor to have you on this program, sir.
Roger Wilkins: It's my pleasure - I'm very pleased to be here.
Tavis: Let me start by asking you whether or not - I saw a piece just today, and the title said something like the 100-day silliness. And I thought I'd start by asking whether or not this 100 day thing really is silliness.
Wilkins: Well, it started with Franklin Roosevelt. He came in in 1932, the year that was the depth of the Depression and also the year I was born, and he just started doing things. And he just revved up a national feeling that something could be done about this terrible stuff.
And he also really buoyed people's feelings about themselves and about the future by talking about we have nothing but fear itself. He showed he would take action - he closed the banks.
So after his first 100 days, people looked around and said, "This is amazing. This guy did more than virtually any president in the past ever has." So we've been stuck with the 100 days ever since then.
Tavis: What do you make, then, of how President Obama has done in his first 100 days?
Wilkins: Well, first of all, he was hit in the face with a tsunami and he didn't buckle and he didn't fall and he didn't panic. What he did was to show a leadership style that probably the only people who knew about it were the people who had been in his campaign.
But a leadership style that had him picking the smartest people he could find for this, that, or the other job, deep consultation, careful thought, and then decision - decision. I make this decision; this is the direction I think we should go. I'm accountable, you should hold me accountable.
It was a pretty impressive beginning, I thought. I may have felt that he should have fought harder for the middle class tax cut, I may have been a little bit alarmed that he and Geithner were letting some of the old bankers who were around while creating the collapse back into running their institutions, but basically I think that he has - let me put it this way.
Walter Lippman, the great journalist at the time of Roosevelt, went to see Roosevelt in his first term. And he came out and he said, "That man's got a second-rate intellect, but he's got a first-rate composure." Well, Barack Obama's got both. He has a leadership composure. You look at a new president and you ask yourself, does this person seem presidential? Does he look presidential to me? And we do it all the time to new presidents.
I think that this man has shown a composure and a will to get to the bottom of problems, and a determination to be involved in everything. I think it's been very, very impressive.
Tavis: You hit on something a moment ago that I want to go back now and give you a chance to unpack it a little better for me - this notion that some have that he has now shown, as yet, his willingness to fight.
He has now shown as yet he's willing to take a stand on something, to fight for it. The word acquiescence keeps coming up time and time again on a number of issues, including ones you've raised in this conversation prior.
Talk to me - it's one thing to look presidential. Talk to me about whether or not you think he has, in fact, shown - or will have to, in fact, show that he will draw a line in the sand and fight for those things that he believes in, like the tax cut, et cetera, et cetera.
Wilkins: I think that he was - (laughs) I think anybody would be amazed and could not believe that the Republicans would be as obstreperous in a national crisis as they have been. But to get no Republican votes in the House and to have the Republican members of the United States Senate banging on his head, banging on his head, banging on his head, I think took him backwards.
I don't think that - I've been around Washington since 1962 and I've never seen any behavior like the behavior of the House and Senate Republicans, and I don't think that he had any reason to be able to expect that. But I think that he's a guy with a fierce will. You wouldn't be a Black president at the age of 47 if you didn't have a fierce will.
And I think that the fights are yet to come. He'll do it if necessary. He would rather talk things out and reach accommodation, but he's learning. That's the way he did it when he was president of the "Harvard Law Review." But they don't play beanbag in Washington. This is the real deal, and I think he'll do it.
Tavis: So I want to make sure I understand your point - is it your belief that over time he will become more fierce in pushing back, in fighting back, in drawing that line in the sand in the things that he believes in and will fight for?
Wilkins: That's right.
Tavis: Okay.
Wilkins: You've got it just right.
Tavis: Okay. Your take, then - let me move internationally now - your take on what he has done to repair the damage to the reputation of the U.S. that many people feel President Bush was responsible for?
Wilkins: Well, I think the first thing was to acknowledge the torture. That's really hard. We don't look at ourselves as torturers. (Laughs) Now, we have a country that tortured Black people for a couple of centuries, (laughter) but we don't torture.
But to leave that, we fought a war against the axis - Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo - and we were the good guys. We were the people who believed in democratic principle; we were the people who believed that citizens had the right to direct their government.
The other guys were the bad guys, and they were torturers. And when we won, we tried them. We tried them in criminal war courts for crimes against humanity. Well, we can't then turn around and say, "Well, now we're in a tight spot so we can torture." Uh-uh, that doesn't stand up. Nobody in the world respects us for it - they disrespect us for it.
They disrespect us for the lack of respect that we showed for other countries, and on the world stage Obama's cut a wonderful figure. At the G20, people came away - foreign leaders came away glowing about him. He goes to Mexico, says we've got to share this burden; we've got to figure out how to do this immigration thing and to have good trade.
He even talked to Chavez of Venezuela; was smacked in the head by the Republicans again for shaking hands with this bad guy. Well, somebody dug out a picture of Ronald Reagan, their hero, shaking hands with Gorbachev, who had nuclear weapons that they could drop on us.
So the Republicans are really pretty ridiculous about a lot of things, and they've made him look even better than they thought he would be.
Tavis: I got just 30 seconds here, Professor Wilkins, right quick. The new poll, the new study just out yesterday, in fact, front page, "New York Times," that suggested - I'm paraphrasing here - that under President Obama's administration Americans believe that race relations have already improved. That's the top line of the story.
Is that reading too much into what a president can do in 100 days?
Wilkins: Well, I do think Americans overall feel more comfortable about race, and I think that the fact that he came in and looked ready to lead from day one, that he didn't look like somebody who wasn't big enough for the job - for example, he didn't look the way Condoleezza Rice looked both when she was the foreign policy person in the White House and then when she was the secretary of State.
Obama looks like a president; he looks like he is enjoying being president. He looks like he doesn't shy away from hard problems. And I think that has made people feel better, and it's made White people and Black people feel better about the world feeling better about us. And I think we feel better about ourselves.
Tavis: Roger Wilkins, former professor at George Mason, member of the Johnson administration, and now the editor of the NAACP's long-running publication, "The Crisis" magazine. Professor Wilkins, nice to have you on. All the best to you, sir.
Wilkins: Thank you very much for asking me - thank you.
Tavis: My pleasure.
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