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Bernard Rapoport has lived the American Dream. Born to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents in San Antonio, Texas, in 1917, he grew up in modest circumstances and worked his way through the University of Texas during the Great Depression. In 1951, he and a partner founded the American Income Life Insurance Company, which he developed into a multi-million dollar business. Using his wealth to support a host of local, national, and international organizations, Rapoport was named by Fortune magazine as one of America's forty most generous philanthropists, unstinting in his support for education, social justice, and liberal political causes. In his memoir, Rapoport recalls a life of hard work and a philosophy of giving back to the community that made him a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist. He explains how his early experience of poverty and his youthful acquaintance with Marxists and New Deal economists shaped him into a capitalist with a conscience, one who, as he says, "could never understand why people who have a lot aren't willing to share." Rapoport goes on to describe his liberal activism as a support of Democrats from Ralph Yarborough to Senate majority leader Tom Daschle to his good friends Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, an underwriter of the political journal The Texas Observer, a regent of the University of Texas Systems, a supporter of the state of Israel, and a champion of at-risk students. Don Carleton, who transformed Rapoport's oral reminiscences into this book, also brings in the voices of Rapoport's friends, family, and business associates to offer a full portrait of the man Bill Moyers calls "a force of nature." Rapoport concludes this memoir with reflections on business success and the urgency of supporting children's education, both of which causes he continues to pursue vigorously in the ninth decade of his life. Bernard Rapoport lives in Waco, Texas, where he is head of the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Foundation. Don Carleton is Director and J.R. Parten Fellow in the Archives of American History and Ben F. Love Fellow in Communication at the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. |
