Kennedy and Civil Rights: 60 Years Since The Speech That Changed A Nation
By Will Barber Taylor
The history of the 1960s in the United States will, for so many people, be dominated by the fight for civil rights, in particular the civil rights of black Americans.
When John F Kennedy gained the Democratic nomination for President in 1960, he would often invoke the election that had occurred 100 years before. That contest, between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, would make the beginning of a new era of American politics and directly lead to the American Civil War, a conflict which would help to redefine the country that a hundred years later still bore the scars of injustice and discrimination. Whilst history remembers Lincoln as the emancipator of the slaves, a title that has born praise and criticism, John F Kennedy’s own brief time as President has seen him, on the issue of civil rights, come under criticism. This is in large part because it took Kennedy until 1963 to begin putting forward the piece of legislation that would ultimately become the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The act, that would be passed under President Johnson and thanks to Johnson’s political manoeuvring and support from Republican Senators, was a significant piece of legislation for the civil rights of African Americans. The seeds of that act, however, began whilst JFK was in office and the act was keenly linked in the then President’s mind to be one of his most significant speeches, given on 11 June 1963 that redefined the fight for civil rights.
To place the speech in context, it is important to note Kennedy’s approach to civil rights prior to his 1963 speech. There has been an argument that, particularly as he became a prominent figure in US politics, that Kennedy was very much in the middle on civil rights. Thomas Oliphant and Curtis Wilkie describe in their book The Road to Camelot, how during the 1956 Convention Kennedy was seen by his supporter Robert Troutman, an Atlanta attorney and former room mater of JFK’s elder brother Joseph P Kennedy Jnr, (who would go on to become Chairman of JFK’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity between 1961–1962) as being seen in the South as sitting in the middle on civil rights between the liberal Hubert Humphrey (perhaps the most ardent Senate Democrat on civil rights, despite his own use of bigotry against Kennedy during the 1960 campaign) and the ambivalent Estes Kefauver. This isn’t to say that he didn’t engage in the matter of civil rights at all — in Massachusetts, Kennedy was recognized as Frederik Logevall argues in his seminal biography of Kennedy, JFK: Volume One, as an important advocate of civil rights. Kennedy was seen as being unlike other “northern pols” because he would “just walk into a woman’s beauty salon in a black neighbourhood, go right up to the woman below the hair dryer and say “Hi, I’m Jack Kennedy” according to Boston lawyer Harold Vaughan. Kenndy was not simply engaging with black communities, however as Logevall made clear, he was also supporting civil rights as an elected Congressman. He supported a bill to abolish the poll tax in 1948 (a piece of legislation that passed the House but ended up dying on the floor of the Senate), another to ban lynching and another to give Washington DC its own elected representatives. DC then had a majority black population and yet did not have an elected Mayor or other forms of elected representation — Kennedy was one of the main supporters of a move for DC to have its own voice but the motion was defeated. Kennedy also opposed during that initial year in congress, a new 3 percent city sales tax. The tax, that would target black residents in particular, was one that Kennedy found bigoted. He argued that any new sales tax burden should be placed on those who could afford to pay the most and not on the less fortunate. The bill, however, passed. Kennedy’s early advocacy on civil rights did help grow his profile with an early article in The Washington Post citing Kennedy as “born with a silver soup ladle in his mouth but with the welfare of the humble in his heart.”
Yet, it would be foreign affairs that would shape much of Kennedy’s image before the American public. Kennedy’s stance against communism in the United States helped him to win election as the Senator for Massachusetts in 1952 (which I wrote about here). It would be an important part of his contribution to the body politic of the day (in particular, his time spent on the McClellan Committee investigating the links between labour unions and improper activities which, alongside extortion and other criminal activities was concerned with potential communist infiltration into the union movement, alongside his brother Robert F Kennedy, who served as Chief Counsel to the committee) but it was not his only concern. Whilst in the senate, civil rights would become an important issue once again for Kennedy’s career as civil rights activists pushed for better legislation.
The 1957 Civil Rights Act was, to many, an important moment. It marked the first time in nearly a hundred years, since the days of reconstruction, that a piece of civil rights legislation had been passed by the United States congress. However, it was in all a controversial piece of legislation both in how black American activists saw it as not going far enough and racist Southern senators saw it as going too far. Somewhat stuck in the middle was the junior Senator for Massachusetts, John F Kennedy. Kennedy’s role in the passage of the Act was criticised by some. One senate colleague mocked “Why not show a little less profile and a bit more courage?” — this barbed reference to Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage” published only a year earlier would certainly have stung the Senator. The cause of the anger for liberals and black Americans was that the bill fundamentally did not go far enough. In order to get the bill passed, it was suggested that Rule XIV be invoked meaning that the bill would bypass the house and be sent directly to the floor of the Senate for a vote, avoiding the Judiciary Committee who may have tampered with parts of the bill, effectively watering it down. Kennedy opposed the vote because, as he argued to NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins it would set “a dangerous precedent… which can be used against our cause and other liberal causes in the future.” Kennedy’s explanation to Wilkins would not endear Kennedy to Wilkins. Wilkins would have a public spat with Kennedy over it, writing that many of his colleagues “feel uneasy over this apparent entente cordial between Kennedy of Massachusetts and Griffith, Timmerman, Talmadge, Eastland, et al., of Dixie.” Wilkins would eventually revise his opinion of Kennedy the following year, in part thanks to Kennedy’s friendship with other leading members of the NAACP, and during Kennedy’s re-election campaign he agreed to publicly endorse the Senator, writing a carefully worded letter that was read out before the Massachusetts Citizens Committee For Minority Rights:
“Senator Kennedy did vote for the jury trial amendment to the 1957 civil rights bill, and we disagreed on this and still regret his choice…. The Senator’s record, taken as a whole, and including his forthright and repeated support of the Supreme Court decision of May 17, 1954 [Brown v. Board] . . . must be regarded … as one of the best voting records on civil rights and related issues of any Senator in the Congress.”
Kennedy’s favoured option of a discharge petition during the 1957 Civil Rights Acts passage was more conventional but also more difficult to use; despite this Kennedy was aware that civil rights advocates would win the discharge petition fight meaning it would inevitably pass. This, for some historians like Robert Dallek, was evidence of Kennedy politicking by helping the bill to pass but still using it as an opportunity regressive Southern Democrats on certain parts of civil rights legislation. Namely the part of the bill that dealt with jury selection, an important aim for civil rights activists as juries were more often than not weighted in favour of a white minority of potential juror, in order to gain their support later on. Kennedy was aware that in order to get the 1960 Presidential nomination he had to walk a tightrope both electorally and politically. Dallek’s view has been contrasted in recent years by the likes of Oliphant, Wilkie and Logevall whose more recent works on Kennedy have positioned the 1957 Civil Rights Bill as being a difficult position for Kennedy but not inherently a sign of a disinterest in civil rights or being totally motivated by political self-interest. They have, in contrast to Dallek, given room to examine Kennedy’s pre presidential record on civil rights in more detail. Dallek is not alone in this omission — John T Shaw’s book JFK in The Senate fails to deal with the 1957 Civil Rights Act at all and other books from the early 2000s to the mid-2010s written about Kennedy often take Dallek’s lead and don’t interrogate the historical record enough on JFK’s relationship to civil rights, merely positing that he was in the centre on the issue. Dallek’s views on the subject might, in part, be due to his favourability towards Lyndon B Johnson, which is evident throughout both his biography of Kennedy and throughout his other work (notably his multiple biographies of Johnson — Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and his Times, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and his Times, 1961–1973 and Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President). Indeed, in his section on the 1957 Civil Rights Bill, Dallek doesn’t fully address the complications the legislation caused for Johnson, then Senate Majority Leader and another contender for the 1960 Democratic nomination, in his biography of Kennedy and instead makes it seem as if Kennedy was uniquely fudging the issue of civil rights. Dallek’s argument regarding Kennedy’s interest in civil rights only emerging at the time of the 1957 Civil Rights Bill being brought to the floor of the senate is simply not the case, as Logevall proved at length in his longer biography of Kennedy. Equally, Dallek’s view is contrasted by Oliphant and Wilkie in The Road to Camelot who argue that Kennedy was concerned with “how to effectively achieve civil rights progress while showing a willingness to compromise.” His reaction to the 1957 bill was not a case of lacking in morality or merely interest in the political impact of supporting such legislation (something Dallek never accuses Johnson of in his biography of Kennedy) but because he found it to be, ultimately, a difficult piece of legislation to pass and one that, if it was to succeed would need some compromise. The compromise was one that, Robert Kennedy said was important because:
“My brother and I thought that really didn’t make any sense [sending legislation up that would end up being defeated] and what mattered was doing something.”
What was clear was that the Democratic Party of the 1950s and 1960s was one that had not fully come to terms with its identity, partly because it still had strong ties to the South. Despite FDR and the New Deal’s efforts to move the party left wards, it was still one that had strong conservative leanings, particularly on civil rights issues. FDR in fact had effectively supported segregation in the National Housing Act of 1934; the act stated that it would underwrite mortgages for white only. Similarly, during his lengthy time as President Roosevelt promised but never did end segregation in the United States Army, a move that was quickly made by his successor Harry Truman in 1946. Whilst FDR did make progress on civil rights matters, such as passing Executive Order 8802 that stated that the federal government couldn’t discriminate against any applicant based on skin colour, he did not end segregation or prevent much of the heartache, suffering and necessary political action that had to be taken in the 1960s. The internal fight between much more liberal Democrats, like former Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson, and the more conservative, segregationist Democrats like the man who would become the Governor of Alabama whilst Kennedy was President, George Wallace, was a bitter one. In many ways, the Democratic Party was still as split as the United States had been during the Civil War; a north that was generally in favour of desegregation (and had already done so in many instances) and a south that was generally against it. In order for Kennedy to become the party’s nominee, let alone the President, he would have to be cautious on civil rights, particularly when it came to campaigning in the South. It’s certainly easy to criticise Kennedy for this but he was, in some ways only following in Lincoln’s footsteps — when Lincoln was elected, he had not promised to end slavery across the United States, merely advocating that any new states added to the Union shouldn’t be slave states. That a mixture of circumstance and conviction allowed Lincoln to abolish slavery is to his credit, but he was, at times, as guilty of the politicking that Kennedy’s rivals and detractors accused him of.
This was why, when it came to the 1957 Civil Rights Act, Kennedy was somewhat coy about his support for civil rights. It was also easy to target Kennedy and many Democratic colleagues wanted to take him down regardless of whether their accusations were true; his near win of the vote for the Vice-Presidential nomination the previous year and the bestseller, Pulitzer winning status of ‘Profiles in Courage’ made him a clear contender for the party’s 1960 nomination and so a threat to other rivals for that much converted slot. Kennedy’s role in the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act was not minor but nor did he make it a large part of his 1960 Presidential campaign. Civil Rights would, however, become an issue Kennedy would have to address during the 1960 Presidential Campaign.
Whilst Kennedy was keen to focus on America’s international relationship (his speech to the students of the University of Illinois in October 1960 is a masterclass is attacking an administration for failing to make its presence known around the world, to dismiss the Eisenhower administration for failing to press forward with, what Kennedy saw as being a core missions — to be work closer with emerging African democracies) and issues such as the feared missile gap between the United States and the USSR, civil rights were bound to come up. This would come to a head towards the end of the campaign when Martin Luther King was arrested in the deep south.
MLK’s arrest was on a trumped-up charge. During a sit in in Atlanta, Georgia protesting segregation on 19 October (days before Kennedy’s University of Illinois speech) King and 52 other civil rights advocates were arrested. The sit ins organised by King and others were protesting the Jim Crow laws that existed throughout the South segregating all of society and forcing black people to use separate diners, toilets, and other public spaces. King was at that time not committed to supporting either candidate however his father, Martin Luther King Senior, was expressly canvasing for Nixon in his sermons — for the senior King it would be unthinkable that a Catholic could become President. The irony of the bigotry seemed to be lost on the senior Reverend King.
His son, on the other hand, seemed much more inclined towards the Senator for Massachusetts. In his autobiography, compiled from Kings’ own private papers and published after his death, he offered this insight into his feelings about Kennedy prior to the Atlanta arrest:
“John Kennedy did not have the grasp and the comprehension of the depths of the problem at that time, as he later did. He knew that segregation was morally wrong, and he certainly intellectually committed himself to integration, but I could see that he didn’t have the emotional involvement then. He had not really been involved enough in and with the problem. He didn’t know too many Negroes personally. He had never really had the personal experience of knowing the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the Negro for freedom, because he just didn’t know Negroes generally and he hadn’t had any experience in the civil rights struggle. So, I felt that it was an intellectual commitment.
A few months later, after he had been nominated, I talked with him over at his house in Georgetown, and in that short period he had really learned a great deal about civil rights and had been advised rather well. I’d had little enthusiasm when he first announced his candidacy, but I had no doubt that he would do the right thing on the civil rights issue, if he were elected President…
For many months during the election campaign, my close friends urged me to declare my support for John Kennedy. I spent many troubled hours searching for the responsible and fair decision. I was impressed by his qualities, by many elements in his record, and by his program. I had learned to enjoy and respect his charm and his incisive mind. But I made very clear to him that I did not endorse candidates publicly and that I could not come to the point that I would change my views on this.”
King’s view of Kennedy’s commitment to civil rights being intellectual rather than moral is one often repeated, and it is perhaps less to do with anything Kennedy actually felt and more to his approach to the issue. It was easier to see a man like Hubert Humphrey, who was perhaps the most ardent Senator for civil rights, as being emotionally invested. Kennedy’s focus on compromise and caution was easier to perceive as being the result of politicking rather than, as Robert Kennedy argued, the result of concern for not simply wanting to be seen to advocate for change but to actually make change happen. It’s easy to understand that King would see this as lacking a certain emotional commitment to the cause.
King’s arrest was an incredibly dangerous moment for him. Not only was he perhaps the most prominent civil rights leader of the time, but a dangerous label also to have in a heavily racist southern prison system, he did not have the political capital with the racists institutes that were imprisoning him to be able to get off the trumped-up charge.
King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, desperately sought to speak to both candidates. Richard Nixon, then Vice President and the Republican nominee for President expressed sympathy but felt he could not directly intervene. A message was conveyed to JFK at the same time via Kennedy’s brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver a keen supporter of civil rights who, alongside Harris Woodford also working on the Kennedy campaign, felt Kennedy had to intervene as much as he could and that he should call Mrs King to express his sympathies for her husband’s arrest and to try to help in any way he could. Kennedy agreed to speak to her; he had already tried to get the Governor of Georgia to release King, but this had been done in private. His call to Mrs King proved to be a much more public affair and news that the Senator had, unlike the Vice President, spoken to the imprisoned pastor’s wife soon leaked out. Bobby Kennedy, campaign manager for his brother, exploded at the thought of intervening in the case because it could potentially lose them the South. The tension between political success and morality is often a tight one but, in that moment, it was especially tight in the Kennedy camp.
Hours later, RFK had an epiphany — how could they turn their back on King even if it harmed JFK’s chances of becoming President? The brothers conversed and agreed that they would work with the Governor of Georgia and various officials in Fulton County, where King was being held, to help free King. King described how he felt upon being released thanks to the efforts of RFK and JFK:
“Robert Kennedy called the judge to find out about the bond. I understand Robert Kennedy was really angry about it, when they got it over to him and let him know all of the facts in the situation. In that spirit of anger, he called the judge. I don’t know what he said in that conversation with the judge, but it was later revealed his main point was “Why can’t he be bonded out?” I was released the next day. It was about two weeks before the election.
Senator Kennedy had served as a great force in making my release from Reidsville Prison possible. I was personally obligated to him and his brother for their intervention during my imprisonment. He did it because of his great concern and his humanitarian bent. I would like to feel that he made the call because he was concerned. He had come to know me as a person then. He had been in the debates and had done a good job when he talked about civil rights and what the Negro faces. Harris and others had really been talking with him about it. At the same time, I think he naturally had political considerations in mind. He was running for an office, and he needed to be elected, and I’m sure he felt the need for the Negro votes. So, I think that he did something that expressed deep moral concern, but at the same time it was politically sound. It did take a little courage to do this; he didn’t know it was politically sound.”
Indeed, Kennedy wasn’t certain it would be politically sound. The Kennedys did all they could to keep news of the incident out of press in the South as far as possible. It did offer some political gain; however, Kennedy was able to print a leaflet including words of thanks from both King and the Reverend King Senior (who thanks to his son’s release had decided that he would rather support Kennedy than Nixon) complimenting Kennedy on his role in the events surrounding King’s freedom. The incident not only showed that Kennedy’s engagement with civil rights was much more emotionally involved than King might have initially thought, but it was also something he was clearly willing to do, even though perhaps somewhat cautiously, despite any political repercussions.
Despite the high hopes that King and others had for Kennedy’s Presidency, many civil rights activists became disillusioned with the speed of change. It would take till the last year of Kennedy’s 1,000 day term for truly significant movement to begin on civil rights. In part, this was due to the vast legislative agenda that Kennedy had before him — further investment into NASA whilst dealing with the minor recession that occurred prior to his entering office; the geopolitical strife in Russia and Europe and its consequences for Cuba and the various other New Frontier projects Kennedy wanted to enact, building alliances with Latin American nations and engaging with newly independent African countries.
It was also partly due to concern and hesitation inside the administration given the scale of the challenge that any civil rights legislation would have — particularly difficult for Kennedy as much of his own party in the South were opposed to ending segregation. It is reasonable to criticise this caution — Kennedy could have introduced legislation sooner and equally could have acted more rapidly to push forward civil rights under his New Frontier policy agenda — and yet the political reality of the situation made it initially difficult for him to move forward with a genuinely meaningful piece of legislation.
This changed in June 1963 when Kennedy was forced to send in the National Guard to allow four black students to register for their courses at the Universities of Mississippi and Alabama. In the case of Alabama, the racist Governor (a Democrat) George Wallace attempted to physically block the students from being let in. Kennedy signed an order nationalising the Alabama State Guard, putting them under his direct control rather than Wallace’s. The Governor was forced to move aside when asked by Henry V Graham of the Alabama State Guard, acting on the orders both of the President and his brother the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy. RFK had been deeply involved with the fight for desegregation as Attorney General and it was in no small part due to his efforts that the four students were able to be registered.
It was abundantly clear to Kennedy that in order to change the country he needed to take a stronger grasp of the issue of civil rights and show moral leadership. Wallace had shown that there were elements of his own party which would not be easily persuaded to change their mind. Kennedy’s only option was to take the lead and propose strong and specific legislation that would once and for all end segregation in the South. Most of his senior advisors disagreed with the President and asked him not to give a speech on civil rights; they knew how divisive it would be, how it could impact Kennedy’s chances of re-election in 1964. Only the President’s brother Bobby agreed with the President and urged him to make the speech. During his time as Attorney General, RFK had become a committed warrior for equality, berating NASA’s director James Webb for being unaware of how many black employees worked there and insisting on more equal opportunities for ethnic minorities across the board. RFK and JFK agreed that what was more important than the election was making a moral point. With hours to go before the broadcast, Kennedy’s speech writer Ted Sorensen worked around the clock to create a speech before and handing Kennedy a draft copy with minutes to spare. That Kennedy still spent time those last few minutes editing and rewriting sections of speech shows how concerned he was with getting his words right.
The speech began, on 11 June 1963, with a clear and fundamental message:
“This afternoon, following a series of threats and defiant statements, the presence of Alabama National Guardsmen was required on the University of Alabama to carry out the final and unequivocal order of the United States District Court of the Northern District of Alabama. That order called for the admission of two clearly qualified young Alabama residents who happened to have been born Negro.
“That they were admitted peacefully on the campus is due in good measure to the conduct of the students of the University of Alabama, who met their responsibilities in a constructive way.
“I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”
Kennedy’s deliberate invoking of the foundation of the United States, that moment that has in the hinterland of American politics an almost mythical potency that still influences the actions of many American politicians and thinkers. As President, in a way that his predecessors could not fully manage, Kennedy managed to act in this speech as the guiding conscience of the country. The appeal to higher nature was a part of Kennedy’s sell — his oratory and, some argued, lofty vision of an America that combined the frontier ship of Teddy Roosevelt with the introspective soul of Robert Frost was part of why people liked him and supported him. Politicians have too often since Kennedy’s death and the transformation of the media’s perception of politics become less than moral arbiters. Donald Trump was only the latest slide down, the most recent cut in the perception of morality and the office of the President — one that had been evident during the dark days of the Nixon presidency onwards. Kennedy was lucky in this sense — his extramarital affairs and lying about the state of his bad health would in the modern age have harmed his ability to act as a guide to the moral and social obligations of the country he led. And yet he was able to do this and this sense of duty, of genuine moral conviction is apparent throughout this speech.
Indeed, the issue of morality became the crux of perhaps the most famous part of the speech:
“We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.
“The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who will represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?
“One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.”
The hammering home of the message of morality, the need to remind many of his white viewers that their discrimination against their fellow citizens was hypercritical and bigoted, the link to American history and one of its most famous Presidents and the final defining like about a nation that could not boast to argue for freedom in other countries when many of the people who lived in that country weren’t free are core to why this speech is still remembered sixty years after it was given. It is an impassioned, articulate, and well-rounded piece of prose that cuts to the heart of the need for change in America’s political and social system. It was a stunning, heartfelt piece of writing delivered in a clear, calm voice by Kennedy.
The reaction to Kennedy’s speech was immediate — as soon as he had finished speaking, Kennedy received a telegram from MLK:
“Dear Mr President,
“I have just listened to your speech to the nation. It was one of the most eloquent, profound, and unequivocal pleas for justice and the freedom of all men ever made by any President. You spoke passionately to the moral issues involved in the integration struggle.
I am sure that your encouraging words will bring a new sense of hope to the millions of disinherited people of our country. Your message will become a hallmark in the annals of American history.”
King’s praise was certainly great but for the segregationists and other racists in America, Kennedy’s proposal would cause only anger. The murder of Medgar Evers, field secretary for the NAACP, the day after Kennedy’s speech caused consternation and shock across the black community. Kennedy ensured that Evers was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full honours — King’s presence at the funeral caused concern for some with Jackie Robinson sending a telegram to Kennedy warning him that if King was assassinated at the funeral, then riots would occur nationwide.
The path to the passage of the act that Kennedy proposed before Congress days later, on the 19th of June 1963, would be a hard and bitter fight and one Kennedy would not see resolved. Yet, his inspired and captivating speech helped to begin the process of passing that bill that fundamentally changed American society for the better forever. It was an important moment that showed the Presidency finally and fully recognizing the scale of the moral injustice that had existed in the United States against its African American population for centuries.
The power of Kennedy’s words was not enough of course on their own but that recognition by him of the pain and struggle that was being continually endured across America was a significant moment that should not, sixty years on, be forgotten.
