How Did Kennedy and His Administration Effect the Civil Rights Movement During His Presidency?

Kennedy and the Civil Rights Movement

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, or JFK, served the President of the United States for less than a single full term in the early 1960s after serving in Congress for several terms before this. He was elected in 1960 and took office the following January, promising to explore new frontiers and bring the country to new heights. In late November of 1963, he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Despite the relatively short period of time in which he ruled the nation, Kennedy led the country to a period of heretofore unimaginable levels of financial success due to a thriving economy and also saved the country and the world from becoming embroiled in nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Kennedy dealt with Fidel Castro and the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War and the beginning of the war between the United States and the country of Vietnam in Eastern Asia. He also helped to ensure that by the end of the 1960s Americans would be the first to orbit the globe and then to land on the moon. It can be argued that he served during one of the most volatile periods in American history with major issues both at home and abroad. One of the most important contributions that Kennedy made to the United States during his presidency was to bring the Civil Rights Movement to the federal government and ensure that steps were taken to protect the rights of all American citizens. At first Kennedy hoped civil rights would be a non-issue in his administration, but it soon became obvious that this situation would become the legacy of his presidency. He accomplished this in three distinct ways: giving legitimacy and attention to the cause of the Civil Rights Movement as well as responding negatively to the southern authorities who were subverting this cause, being responsive to the issues of those involved in the quest for civil rights and making it a federal issue rather than a state matter, and by encouraging members of the youth population of both races to become activists in fighting for equality.

Attention to the Cause:

Kennedy's opponent in the 1960 election was Richard Millhouse Nixon who was the Republican candidate and had been Vice President of the United States. It looked like it was going to be a very tight race. Older and middle-aged people such as the World War II veterans supported Nixon while younger adults tended to side more with the Democrat Kennedy and his views on certain issues. Looking closely at their policies, it seems that the two men were actually quite similar. Both Nixon and Kennedy supported equality for African-Americans. The major difference seems to be in the decision whether or not to focus on this issue during their presidential campaign (Renka 2010). Richard Nixon, fearful of losing support from southerners who opposed civil rights, particularly the government office holders who felt opposed to it, backed down on the topic and this cost him in the end. Kennedy on the other hand made it no secret how he felt about civil rights and used it as a platform in the campaign. As everyone knows, Kennedy wound up winning the November election, thanks in no small part to African-Americans.

While running for president in 1960, John F. Kennedy received a large proportion of the African-American vote, at least of the African-Americans who could vote in that election. This was due to his pledge during the campaign that he intended to secure equal rights for African-Americans, something he put more effort into vocalizing than actually pursuing, at least at first. Kennedy hoped to stay out of the Civil Rights issue if at all possible. He came to the same conclusion as Nixon and realized that pursuing this agenda would likely alienate southern Senators and make his presidency very difficult and quite ineffective in terms of making laws. Without a cooperative Congress, it would be difficult if not impossible to get through any legislation, particularly the proposed laws which dealt with domestic issues (Grantham 1988,-page 156). Kennedy highlighted the issue of civil rights in his speeches but secretly hoped it would remain an issue relegated to the state government. His intentions were to focus on other issues and allow the civil rights problem to be dealt with by lower levels of government. Of course, this was not to be and Kennedy would have to become heavily involved in the movement eventually.

Following the end of the Civil War, African-Americans believed that they would finally be treated as human beings and equal with other Americans. For most people this was not to be the case, particularly if they lived in the American South. In southern states, Jim Crow laws allowed for African-Americans to be segregated against; they also negatively impacted whether African-Americans could vote, the level of education they could hope to obtain, the jobs they could take, and the social mobility that was available to them. This is how things remained for nearly a century with few if any challenges to this status quo. Things were much better, although far from perfect, for African-Americans who were living in northern states. Those who lived in the north could move up socially and consequently the majority of people in northern states lived unconcerned about their countrymen in the south. In the south, people were put into social positions where they were lucky to escape abject poverty. Achieving levels of social mobility was not even considered given that so many African-Americans were left without food, proper clothing, shoes, electricity, transportation, and any number of things which modern Americans take for granted.

Worse even than the lack of proper education or medical care, was the real likelihood of violence which would be perpetrated against African-Americans in the south by members of the white population. African-Americans were in constant fear of being victimized. They were frequently robbed and beaten for the slightest of infractions. Girls were often raped. Few law enforcement agencies would investigate these crimes and even fewer would make arrests. Even if someone was arrested for a crime against an African-American person, all white male juries and white male judges ensured that a miniscule number of white criminals were ever even slightly punished for crimes, even in cases of murder by lynching or beating. A lynch mob would gather together and beat a young African-American person, usually a male, and hang him from the bough of a tree using a homemade noose. The person would often strangle to death if they did not first die from the blood loss, as lynchings were usually started off as a severe beating. Northerners usually ignored these crimes when they heard about them or read about them in the newspapers. High profile cases such as the murder of young Emmett Till who was murdered at the age of 13 brought national attention to violence committed in the south and for a short period people would be outraged. Then this would subside and there would be a quick return to the norm. People were aware of hate groups like the Klu Klux Klan but the overwhelming psychological perspective was that it was a southern problem. Despite such cases, many people even in the south denied that racism and hate crimes were a major issue at all.

When Kennedy brought up the issue on a national level, suddenly it became a real, national if not universal problem. John F. Kennedy was highly respected and beloved by the majority of the American people. In only the first few months of office he had shown himself to be an intelligent and highly skilled leader. He could be trusted to do what was right for the country. If he said that segregation and marginalization of African-Americans was a very real issue with violent repercussions then it was accepted as being true. Further, if Kennedy said it was a northern and southern problem, then this must also be true. Only after he made his views on the issue known did people from the north and other groups reach out to try to help African-Americans to overcome their oppressors. Kennedy began working on the Civil Rights issue while still in the midst of the 1960 presidential campaign. He and his brother Robert called Georgia governor Ernest Vandiver and demanded the release of Martin Luther King, Jr. from prison after he had been arrested during a lunch counter protest (Dallek 2003,-page 292). In this one action, Kennedy showed the country his attitude towards African-American civil rights. Whereas many southern state authorities were encouraging the imprisonment of King and other so-called racially motivated agitators, Kennedy made a decisive stand against those archaic views and demanded equality for African-Americans which he wanted to be achieved through the judicial process.

During his first State of the Union address to Congress in January 1961, Kennedy famously stated: "The denial of constitutional rights to some of our fellow Americans on account of race -- at the ballot box and elsewhere -- disturbs the national conscience, and subjects us to the charge of world opinion that our democracy is not equal to the high promise of our heritage" (Kennedy 1961). In the speech, he proclaimed that the mistreatment of African-Americans would not be tolerated any further. He expected that they would be treated as equals. However, at the same time he did not want to become personally involved in the civil rights issue and wanted the issue to be solved via the courts rather than through continued protests by African-Americans. He hoped that his expression of his viewpoint would be enough to cause change, but of course this was not so.

Federal Responsibility:

Eventually pressure from African-American civil rights groups and a growing number of violent incidences forced Kennedy to take control of the legal effort to defend and implement civil rights. First he assigned federal marshals to attend the Freedom Riders and protect them in their missions into the American south. More violence took place throughout 1961 and 1962 finally forcing the president to act on behalf of the people. On November 10, 1962 he signed Executive Order 11063 which prohibited racial discrimination in federally supported housing or related facilities (Dalek 2003,-page 580). This was in response to the Ole Miss riot of September 1962 which left two people dead and many injured following an attempt by student James Meredith to enroll for classes at the University of Mississippi. The executive order would prove to be the first step wherein Kennedy became intrinsically linked with the "mess" of the Civil Rights Movement.

In the 1950s the first steps were taken to provide equal rights to all American citizens regardless of their ethnicity. Legislation was being passed which overturned laws that propagated racism through segregation and prejudicial policies. Before this time, laws regarding segregation and ethnic equality were relegated to the states themselves. Progressive northern states were faster to formulate plans to equalize, but many southern states refused to do so. By taking the responsibility for civil rights away from the states and placing it in the hands of the federal government, Kennedy ensured that everyone would obtain equality. In 1954, while Kennedy was serving as Senator from Massachusetts, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown v. The Board of Education that separate but equal was, in fact, not equal (Kenney 2000,-page 29). Throughout the country, schools were being forced to desegregate, policy which was backed up by the American or state militaries. The desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas did not occur until 1957 and when it did, the nine African-Americans who entered the school were treated to various abuses throughout the school year, including one female student who had acid thrown in her face. In 1963, Alabama Governor George Wallace tried to prevent two African-American students from entering the University of Alabama and had his blockade removed by Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and the Alabama National Guard under the direct order of President John F. Kennedy. That would prove to be the last straw.

During his presidency, Kennedy worked further to take the laws regarding segregation away from the state governments. Throughout the 1950s and '60s southern states did everything in their power to prohibit desegregation of schools and other public facilities, going so far as the governors of Alabama and Mississippi who declared that they would never give up the right to separate the races. It is evident that had the decisions remained the states' to make, the south would still be a segregated area. Towards the end of what would ultimately be Kennedy's only term in office, he began pushing for the writing and passing of the Civil Rights Amendment which would guarantee equality via the United States Constitution. Therefore no state government at the time or in the future would be able to take away those rights from African-Americans ever again. On the 11th of June, 1963, the same day as the confrontation with Wallace, Kennedy went on television and spoke to the American people where he explained that civil rights would become part of his administration's focus for the remainder of his presidency. He demanded equal access to public schools and facilities and greater protection of voters throughout the country (Reeves 1993,-page 521). Many of the policies he outlined in this speech would later become part of the Civil Rights Amendment which was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964. In this speech, Kennedy explained that to delay the rights of African-Americans was essentially an un-American act because as Americans everyone is entitled to the same treatment. He said:

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 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?..It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this is a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the fact that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all (Kennedy 1963).

In this speech, Kennedy made it clear that from this point on there would be no going back to the time of Jim Crow and African-American subjugation. He would make it federal policy to wipe out segregation and legally protected racism throughout the country. There was definitively a backlash for this speech; Civil Rights activist Medgar Evers was murdered that night and a few days later a major bill to fight poverty in Appalachia which was important to Kennedy was voted down by Southern Congressmen. Kennedy helped author the Civil Rights Amendment and demanded it go to Congress in its original form despite misgivings of Congressmen who believed certain provisions would increase racially motivated violence. His early concerns about becoming involved in the Civil Rights issue proved true; the southern Congressmen turned against him and so did many white people living in segregated parts of the country; it is even possible that his position on Civil Rights led to his own assassination, at least according to some theories on that event. Following the assassination President Johnson pushed for the passage of the Civil Rights Amendment, bolstered by overwhelming levels of support from the American people.

Youth Activism:

Part of Kennedy's appeal was in the way he connected to young Americans of all races. The young people of the United States were instrumental in the furthering of the Civil Rights Movement and Kennedy encouraged young African-Americans to stand up for their rights as Americans. Kennedy, although at first he did not take direct action in the movement, made provisions for people who were involved in peaceful protests. Besides helping Dr. King out of prison and providing guards for Freedom Riders as already mentioned, he also lent support to young people, going so far as to task his brother Robert who was then Attorney General to desegregate the Executive Branch and demand other departments within the government take the same stand (Schlesinger 1978). In addition to this, the brothers were working with Civil Rights activists to release them from prison and provide defense when they were dealing with trumped up charges. Dr. King preached nonviolent protest and as long as the young members of the population were following this path, they had the support of the government. Kennedy hoped that litigation and legislation would be the pathways to Civil Rights and that these could be forced through the peaceful protests of young people. When African-Americans were mistreated, there would be a court case and by proliferating the courts with Civil Rights cases, he hoped change would come without having to become personally involved in the situation, but this did not work.

During the first decades of the movement, there were only a small percentage of African-American southerners involved. Most people just kept about their business and lived their lives as if there were not protests or rebellions against the segregation. Part of this reluctance is argued to be because they were afraid of repercussions from the white population, who had shown through decades of murder, rape, and violence what could happened to an African-American if they offended. Often African-Americans were lynched for slight infractions like whistling at a white woman. It could only be assumed that daring to go against the social code would prove to be even more dangerous for the community. The other part had to do with the mental submission decades of oppression had instilled in the population; they were used to being oppressed and subconsciously or actively believed that fighting against the status quo was ultimately useless.