Rs and Ds, famous and not-so-famous
The garden’s organizing structure is yet to be determined, so we gave it a shot, slotting each person into a group based on what they were best known for to see what patterns emerged. Plenty of people would fit into more than one of these categories.
The list leans ideologically conservative, but not overwhelmingly so.
Thought leaders such as author Russell Kirk (“The Conservative Mind”) and William F. Buckley (longtime host of the public affairs talk show “Firing Line”) are included, along with conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. But so is Scalia’s liberal “best buddy” (her words), Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Thurgood Marshall, the first African American on the court.
The 17 presidents on the list are split fairly evenly, party-wise: eight Republicans, five Democrats, two Democratic-Republicans (the precursor to the Democrats), a Federalist (John Adams) and George Washington, the only president who had no party affiliation.
Civil rights activists Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King are among four married couples, along with actors Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Two first ladies made it in addition to their husbands: Dolley Madison, who largely defined the role, and Eleanor Roosevelt, who turned it into a platform for advocacy.
Some names are less well known than their actions, such as the Black women mathematicians known as “human computers” at NASA who calculated orbital trajectories during the space race in the 1960s. Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan were portrayed in the 2016 movie “Hidden Figures.”
At least a dozen are remembered mostly for one heroic act.
One is Todd Beamer, who was heard over an Airfone saying a final “Let’s roll” before apparently leading fellow passengers to storm the cockpit of the hijacked Flight 93 before it could reach its D.C. target on Sept. 11, 2001.
The “Four Chaplains” shepherded terrified young soldiers toward the lifeboats on a sinking Army transport ship in 1943, then handed out life vests — including their own. Survivors saw Alexander D. Goode, John P. Washington, Clark V. Poling and George L. Fox praying hand-in-hand on the deck as the SS Dorchester went down.