1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [69]
Kennedy Robert F. (1925–1968) Brother of President John F. Kennedy, RFK served as attorney general in the Kennedy cabinet and was also the president’s most trusted adviser, playing a key role in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis, which had the potential for igniting World War III. As attorney general, Kennedy enforced federal policy and Supreme Court rulings mandating the racial integration of public facilities, schools, and universities. In 1965, he became a U.S. senator, and in 1968 began a campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, running against incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson as an opponent of the Vietnam War. His presidential bid ended in his assassination after triumphing in the California primary.
Keokuk (1790?–1848?) Keokuk rose to power among the Sauk and Fox tribe along the Rock River on the Illinois-Iowa border. He opposed leaders such as Black Hawk, who urged militant resistance to white incursions into tribal lands and instead counseled accommodation with and concession to the government. As a result, the Sauk and Fox homelands were ceded to the United States and Keokuk grew wealthy, but lived in disgrace among his tribe.
Kern, Jerome (1885–1945) Although his 1912 The Red Petticoat was the first musical comedy containing all-Kern tunes, it was his 1927 Show Boat that changed the history of musical comedy, transforming the genre into serious musical drama. Kern created a whole new form of popular art—and one that was uniquely American.
Kerouac, Jack (1922–1969) Kerouac was born of French-Canadian descent in Lowell, Massachusetts, was discharged from the U.S. Navy during World War II as mentally disturbed, then made a precarious living as a merchant seaman and worked various odd jobs before publishing his first novel, The Town and the City, in 1950. Restless and dissatisfied with accepted literary and social conventions, he worked toward developing a new style, which was highly charged, spontaneous, and unedited, inspired by jazz improvisation and aided by drugs and liquor. In 1957, he wrote On the Road, a freewheeling narrative of road trips across the United States in search of fulfillment in music, literature, mysticism, sex, and life itself. The characters in On the Road are latter-day hoboes, who turn their backs on regular jobs, mortgages, and the ownership of things. The book became the bible of the “Beat Generation,” which questioned many accepted American values, and which laid the foundation for the Hippie movement of the later 1960s.
Kerry, John (1943– ) Kerry became the junior United States Senator from Massachusetts in 1985 and was the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 2004. He lost to incumbent George W. Bush, in part due to a smear campaign that called into question Kerry’s military decorations earned while he served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. Kerry had first come to public attention during that war as a vocal member of Vietnam Veterans against the War during 1970–1971. The highly decorated veteran made for a passionate and compelling antiwar spokesman and earned a prominent place on President Nixon’s celebrated “Enemies List.”
Kesey, Ken (1935–2001) Early in the 1960s, Kesey was a paid experimental subject at a Veterans Administration hospital, who was given psychedelic drugs and reported on their effects. Combined with his work as an