Civil Rights Movement and JfkCivil Rights Movement and JfkIntroductionPresident John F. Kennedy was elected into office in the fall of 1960. The youngest president ever elected in the United States, a title he still holds, was voted into office on the promises of domestic reform, and communist containment. One of the most beloved presidents in US history, John Kennedy was shot and killed in November 1963. His actions in the civil rights movement are seen by many to have helped push the African-American cause to a new level. However, many historians look back somewhat critically on President Kennedy’s actions now, and see them as somewhat lackluster. When assessing his record on civil rights, and then measuring his purported importance in the matter, one may come to the conclusion that the two do not match. This paper is meant to look into the actions of the 35th President in regards to the civil rights movement, and assess the job that he did. Was he truly a champion of civil rights, or has his record been helped by the undying love this country has for their fallen leader?
Along with uncovering the truths in the history of the matter, this paper will also attempt to delve into the political issues. It is extremely important to understand that no matter what President Kennedy wanted to do, whether positive or negative, he had to deal with a divided Congress, and a divided nation for that matter. He was put into the compromising position of having to appease party members, as well as citizens of the North and South, black or white. The 1960’s were a time of change and revolution in the United States, and the White House was another figure in the revolution. As carefully as can be done, this paper will attempt to uncover the truths on what was held back by Kennedy for political reasons, and what was pushed to the forefront for political reasons.
Bibliography:
[1] See the “Grievance of the National Park Service,” in The National Park Conservation Association, Vol. 18:4 (1910), and “Growth and Social Change in the National Parks,” in J. W. Semenkirk, ed., National Preserving and Restoration in the National Parks of the United States: An Integrated Guide (New York : The Penguin Books, 2008), 677.
[2] G. C. Williams and P. B. Brown, National Postcard: The Postcard for Park Services (1913), pp. 1-20, “An American Nation in the South, by Robert M. Brown and S. G. Tippman,” NAPAC Press, June 2000, 11.
[3] G. C. Williams, National Postcard: The Postcard for Park Services, p. 50-51, National Postcard: The Postcard for Park Services, p. 50.
[4] P. B. Brown, “An American Nation in the South,” p. 677.
[5] J. Semenkirk, “An American Nation in the South: An Exploration of the Postcard for Park Preservation” in M. J. Walker, ed., National Postcard: The Postcard for Park Services (New York : The Penguin Books, 2010), 12–15.
[6] J. Semenkirk, op. cit., p. 25.
[7] “An American Nation in the South,” ibid., p. 25.
[8] Ibid., p. 25.
[9] G. C. Williams, National Postcard: The Postcard for Park Services, p. 40.
Bibliography:
[1] See the “Grievance of the National Park Service,” in The National Park Conservation Association, Vol. 18:4 (1910), and “Growth and Social Change in the National Parks,” in J. W. Semenkirk, ed., National Preserving and Restoration in the National Parks of the United States: An Integrated Guide (New York : The Penguin Books, 2008), 677.
[2] G. C. Williams and P. B. Brown, National Postcard: The Postcard for Park Services (1913), pp. 1-20, “An American Nation in the South, by Robert M. Brown and S. G. Tippman,” NAPAC Press, June 2000, 11.
[3] G. C. Williams, National Postcard: The Postcard for Park Services, p. 50-51, National Postcard: The Postcard for Park Services, p. 50.
[4] P. B. Brown, “An American Nation in the South,” p. 677.
[5] J. Semenkirk, “An American Nation in the South: An Exploration of the Postcard for Park Preservation” in M. J. Walker, ed., National Postcard: The Postcard for Park Services (New York : The Penguin Books, 2010), 12–15.
[6] J. Semenkirk, op. cit., p. 25.
[7] “An American Nation in the South,” ibid., p. 25.
[8] Ibid., p. 25.
[9] G. C. Williams, National Postcard: The Postcard for Park Services, p. 40.
Finally this paper will discuss what happened after Kennedy’s assassination. Did the black society struggle without the presence of Kennedy in office or was there another opportunity to improve our country after his death? The candidacy of his brother Robert Kennedy brings to light those questions and also adds whether or not President Kennedy could of done more in office.
Civil Rights and the 1960 CampaignMany politicians make promises, and never end up keeping them. That is not to say that President Kennedy necessarily did this, but he treaded a fine line. Previous to the campaign, President Kennedy had a track record that could be described as ‘fishy’ at best. In 1957, President Eisenhower drafted a Civil Rights bill which then Senator Kennedy had been notably absent for. He never commented on which way he would have voted on the bill, but his abstinence from the vote was questionable. Popular theory is that President Kennedy chose to miss the vote in fear of being pushed back in the Democratic Party.
When his campaign started in 1960, President Kennedy was at first hesitant to speak on the issue of Civil Rights. As the election grew closer, it is deemed by many that, Kennedy chose to speak on the subject in order to increase his chances of winning the black vote. He began making speeches promising urban housing improvements, enforcement of the desegregation rulings, all with the stroke of his ballpoint pen. He considered it a, “…priority, and the first thing I shall do in office.” Speeches were made at black churches in the North as late as the weekend before the election. Kennedy’s opponent, Richard Nixon, actually had a solid track record of civil rights activism, however Nixon chose to play this down in his attempt to win over the solid Democratic South. Politics were playing an important role as to the future of the civil rights movement.
Despite using civil rights as a campaign tool, Kennedy still managed to win the election and was still favored in the South. The fact that he still held onto his popularity in the South was quite impressive, and this would prove important later on when he would have to appease Southern interests at times.
Once taking office, President Kennedy’s promises were brushed to the side. He did not address the problems of segregation and civil rights again until 2 years into his term. The years 1961 and 1962 saw relatively no action coming down from the White House. The NAACP actually began a letter writing campaign towards the end of 1962, sending the President thousands of ballpoint pens, waiting for that elusive stroke. The promises of urban housing developments were pushed back further and further in Congress, to the point that the finished product was nothing from the promise. The final product was a bill that was only applied to federal housing projects, and did little to improve the lot of African-Americans.
The Voting Rights Act was never even mentioned.
The president’s efforts at making racial discrimination disappear were based on a failed campaign of the early 1960s to create a national movement to improve race relations.
HISTORY The first black President was William Henry Harrison, of Orangeville, North Carolina, in 1932. He came to power and took over the Democratic Party in 1948. During those years, many other major civil rights movements were beginning to fall by the wayside in a bipartisan fashion. The Republican Party was largely united in opposition to civil rights measures, rather than working with Democrats to get the change to take effect in 1959. As part of their efforts to get the vote back to Washington, Democrats held onto the “no-borders” laws and established a National Committee to get the word into the mail that the nation was finally to come to its senses. This resulted in the widespread movement to the right of white people to vote based on race, using the first ever census data, and the first census results to create and then to be used as a basis for race testing as well. There were two main strategies known to history.
In the early 1970s, the Republican Party attempted to win the House of Representatives elections against Democrats. This led to a congressional campaign which resulted in significant losses for the Republican Party. During the ’60s and ’70s, the GOP also tried to win an election in Illinois against Democratic Rep. Emanuel Whitehouse, a nonwhite Democrat. The outcome has been disputed in the public record in the ’90s, when the Democratic Party failed to get the necessary majority to pass legislation to implement voting reform.
One of the most successful congressional campaigns in the history of the Republican Party happened in 1994 when Republican Rep. John Lewis of Georgia won the House seat held by Representative Bob Johnson of Tennessee, after all the members who voted against the ’50s Voting Rights Act (the law that repealed the discriminatory Voting Rights Act) had already died away. For a moment the Republican Party wanted to push the Civil Rights Act forward as quickly as possible after Lyndon Johnson was elected from the Senate in 1968. He won by just a few hundred votes, but the Civil Rights Act brought the whole country to its knees.
In 1997-98, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1998 (the most widely used law on the books in the United States) which essentially stripped the right to black voting rights and made them legal for everyone, subjecting African Americans in all four counties to the same conditions as every other citizen, under what is known as Race Relations. The amendment required that all voters with at least one black parent living in the state whose child or adolescent is at risk should be able to obtain the voting rights accorded to another resident of the
This is not to say that President Kennedy did nothing at all. His 1963 televised