Harry Lembeck

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 Prize-winning 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.

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.