The Potomac Chronicle

From the Kennedy administration through the end of the Reagan era, the Potomac Institute gave vital, behind-the-scenes support to countless public-and-private-sector initiatives related to equal opportunity, urban social problems, and race relations. Part history and part memoir of Harold C. Fleming, the institutes leader, The Potomac Chronicle tells for the first time how the institute served as a creative broker of talent, ideas, and resources among minorities, activists, and interest groups. Owing to Flemings dedication, coolheadedness, and low-key approach, no other such organization was as well linked toand as trusted byboth government policymakers and southern civil rights leaders. In the context of major national trends and events, The Potomac Chronicle tells of the institutes role in the Kennedy administrations civil rights policy debates, in helping the Defense Department set up what would become model guidelines for civil rights compliance by federal contractors, and in informing, educating, and reassuring Americans about Lyndon Johnsons Civil Rights Act. Other accomplishments discussed include the institutes involvement in forming the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, tying civil rights requirements to government programs and private practices in education, housing, and employment, and, in the years before it closed in 1988, helping defend affirmative action.