Desk 88

Since his election to the U.S. Senate in 2006, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown has sat on the Senate floor at a mahogany desk with a proud history.

In Desk 88, he tells the story of eight of the Senators who were there before him. Despite their flaws and frequent setbacks, each made a decisive contribution to the creation of a more just America. They range from Hugo Black, who helped to lift millions of American workers out of poverty, to Robert F. Kennedy, whose eyes were opened by an undernourished Mississippi child and who then spent the rest of his life afflicting the comfortable. Brown revives forgotten figures such as Idaho’s Glen Taylor, a singing cowboy who taught himself economics and stood up to segregationists, and offers new insights into George McGovern, who fought to feed the poor around the world even amid personal and political calamities.

Together, these eight portraits in political courage tell a story about the triumphs and failures of the Progressive idea over the past century. Today, these advances are in peril as employers shed their responsibilities to employees and communities, and a U.S. president gives cover to bigotry. But the Progressive idea is not dead. Recalling his own career, Brown dramatizes the hard work and high ideals required to renew the social contract and create a new era in which Americans of all backgrounds can know the “Dignity of Work.”

About the Author

Sherrod Brown is the senior United States Senator from Ohio, elected to his seat in 2006. He was the U.S. Representative for Ohio's 13th congressional district from 1993­ to 2003 and the forty-seventh Secretary of State of Ohio from 1983 to 1991. A member of the Democratic Party, Senator Brown began his political career in 1975 upon election to the Ohio House of Representatives.