Since the early twentieth century, racial and ethnic minorities have descended upon the South Lawn gates of the White House and at Lafayette Park in massive numbers, hoping to garner the president’s attention. Such appeals have not been restricted to Washington; protesters throughout the nation have made appeals directly to the president. This chapter attempts to assess whether the information in these protest actions was able to resonate in the Oval Office and elicit a presidential response.

We saw in Chapter 3 that congressional representatives often look to informative protest actions within their own districts to understand and address citizens’ concerns. When we shift our focus to the presidential branch of government, the scale of representation expands to include the entire nation, but the pursuit to understand the most pressing issues of citizens remains. As we shall see, the social context of minority protest has provided presidents with an understanding of racial and ethnic minority concerns.