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Synopsis
Taking on Theodore Roosevelt
How One Senator Defied the President on Brownsville and Shook American Politics
By Harry Lembeck
In August 1906 black soldiers were accused of going on a rampage through Brownsville,
Texas, killing one civilian and badly wounding another. Because the shooters could never be
positively identified, President Theodore Roosevelt, on his own authority as Commander-inChief, threw one hundred and sixty-seven soldiers out of the army. Taking On Theodore
recounts the shooting, Roosevelt’s decision, and the heroic and lonely struggle on the
soldiers’ behalf by Republican Senator Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio. The Brownsville shooting
and the crosscurrents of history circling around it – the rivalry between Booker T.
Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois over the direction of the civil rights movement, the
business panics that forced Roosevelt to ally himself with industrial and financial titans he
detested, the rise of Japan and Roosevelt’s concern over its assertive foreign policy backed
by its military that had just won its war with Russia, the disgrace of the Jim Crow South –
tell a story about America through a shooting in southern Texas.
Historian Harry Lembeck, using primary sources and evidence he uncovered to reconstruct
the events, begins at the end when Senator Foraker is honored by the black community in
Washington, D.C. for what he did. Foraker’s fierce resistance, forgotten today, against a
strong President determined to get his own way is a study in courage and the American
character. Evidence given to Roosevelt by his illegitimate first cousin, usually ignored by
historians, is recounted in Taking On Theodore Roosevelt and may provide the answer why
Roosevelt, one of America’s greatest President’s, acted as he did.
When, sixty-seven years after the shooting, President Richard Nixon undid Roosevelt’s
action, it was too late to help all but the one soldier still living.
For more information, please visit www.takingontheodoreroosevelt.com.
ISBN 978-1616149543 / Prometheus Publishers / January 2015 / 544 pages
American History / Hardcover $27.00 / Digital $12.99
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Biography
Harry Lembeck, Author of
Taking on Theodore Roosevelt
How One Senator Defied the President on Brownsville and Shook American Politics
Before “recovering” from the practice of law to pursue his passion for history, Harry
Lembeck did a lot of writing as a lawyer. While studying for his Master of Law (Tax)
degree, he wrote an article in The International Tax Journal analyzing the treatment of
corporate taxes under the tax treaty between the United States and Germany. (He was told
his writing made this more interesting than its subject suggested). Where possible, he
enjoyed salting his filed briefs with metaphorical literary references. Before a United States
District Court he compared someone’s behavior to that of Thomas Cromwell in Robert Bolt’s
A Man for All Seasons. Another time, to emphasize the plodding pace of a lawsuit, he cited
as precedent Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, with appropriate credit, of course, to Charles Dickens’s
Bleak House.
Widely known for his knowledge of Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era, the
producers of the PBS documentary “Slavery by Another Name,” based on the Pulitzer Prizewinning book of the same name, selected Mr. Lembeck as an expert resource in 2011. His
contributions can be seen on the PBS website at: http://video.pbs.org/video/2178670636/
and http://video.pbs.org/video/2178678003.
For its annual meeting in 2012, the Theodore Roosevelt Association asked him to
moderate the symposium on the Progressive Movement of 1912. He also moderated the
symposium on TR and the Rough Riders at its 2009 annual meeting in Tampa, where he
worked with, among other speakers, The New York Times bestselling biographer David
Nasaw, whose books include a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for
Biography, New York Historical Society Book Prize in American History, Bancroft Prize, J.
Anthony Lukas Prize, and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography.
Mr. Lembeck writes for the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, including a
featured review of the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Edith Wharton. An active member of
the TRA, he has been its vice president and on its executive committee and board of
trustees.
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In January 2015, Prometheus Books published Mr. Lembeck’s Taking on Theodore
Roosevelt: How One Senator Defied the President on Brownsville and Shook American
Politics, a popular historical narrative of the Brownsville Incident in 1906. Black soldiers of
the 25th Infantry posted at Fort Brown, Texas were accused of shooting up the town, killing
one civilian and seriously wounding another. As commander-in-chief, President Roosevelt,
without benefit of court-martial or other trial, discharged every black solider at Fort Brown
on the night of the shooting. It is considered the worst thing Roosevelt did as President.
Taking on Theodore Roosevelt examines the shooting, the investigations, and the effort, in
particular the heroic work of Ohio Sen. Joseph B. Foraker, made to get the men back into
the army. The narrative puts the shooting and the discharges in the context of the early
20th century and shows how Brownsville helped change the civil rights movement and the
course of American history. The book has received excellent reviews and endorsements.
Mr. Lembeck has served on the boards of directors of the Marietta Museum of
History, Theatre in the Square (the second largest theater in Georgia) and Bulloch Hall, the
historic home in which Theodore Roosevelt’s mother, Martha “Mittie” Bulloch, grew up and
where she and his father were married. He enjoys speaking before service clubs, e.g.
Rotary and Kiwanis, and other civic organizations. People who have heard his presentations
say he knows his subject very well, and he is spirited, informative, and entertaining. He
was a Marine officer between 1967 and 1971 and served in the continental United States,
on Okinawa, and in Vietnam. He is a native New Yorker and a double alumnus of The Ohio
State University (B.A. and J.D.). His wife is Dr. Emily Lembeck, Superintendent of the
Marietta (Georgia) City Schools and the 2012 Georgia School Superintendent of the Year.
They have two sons and (for the moment) five grandchildren.
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Endorsements
Taking on Theodore Roosevelt
How One Senator Defied the President on Brownsville and Shook American Politics
By Harry Lembeck
“Taking on Theodore Roosevelt wonderfully portrays the bravery of Senator Joseph B.
Foraker in standing up for African Americans after the Brownsville incident. At heart it’s an
exposé of racism in the early twentieth century. Highly recommended!”
—Douglas Brinkley, professor of history, Rice University, and author of
The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
“Harry Lembeck’s experience as a Marine officer and lawyer, coupled with extensive
research, gives him a unique perspective on an unfortunate chapter in Theodore Roosevelt’s
presidential history and allows him to present a balanced and often-sympathetic portrait of
both TR and the Brownsville soldiers. Readers will enjoy this engaging and informative
book.”
—Tweed Roosevelt, president of the Theodore Roosevelt Association
“Attorney and freelance writer Lembeck (secretary, Theodore Roosevelt Association)
uncovers important details about a less-savory event in a largely lauded presidency….
Assiduously researched, this book presents for practitioners and general readers alike a
more complete and complicated portrait of the gifted yet sometimes impulsive and selfrighteous Roosevelt. It also brings to light Foraker, a less well-known but significant political
player, who proved that honest efforts to correct wrongs can come from surprising,
otherwise nonreformist, sources.”—Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Lib. of Congress,
Washington, DC, Library Journal
“Rich in detail and nuance, Taking on Theodore Roosevelt is a powerful narrative that not
only painstakingly describes all perspectives of the Brownsville tragedy, but also shows how
the many people involved, from Sgt. Mingo Sanders to Theodore Roosevelt and his
nemesis, Senator Joseph Foraker, were shaped by the larger forces around them. I
expected a history of the Brownsville Incident. What I found instead was a history of the
United States through the prism of Brownsville.”
—Quintard Taylor, Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Chair of American History, University
of Washington, Seattle
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“Foraker’s complicated, prickly personality has never been captured better than in
Lembeck’s pages, but even so, he’s just one character in a wonderful gallery of great
portraits painted in these pages, from relatively minor characters like a flamboyant Texas
Ranger who walks into the scandal in its early days…to some of the most prominent figures
of the day, including the book’s two champion grandstanders, Roosevelt and Booker T.
Washington….This book is hugely readable and accomplished, the sure-handed work of a
historian who loves good stories but isn’t for a moment hoodwinked by them. It’s a
thumpingly good start to 2015’s roll of history volumes – and an essential addition to any
inquiry into the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.”
—Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly: An Arts and Literature Review
“…well-researched, offers a fresh look at an obscure aspect of one of our most enduringly
popular presidents and is thoroughly engaging.”
—Joe Kirby, Marietta Daily Journal
Pick of the Month, February, 2015
—Alan Caruba, Bookviews
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