Kennedy (1950-1963) and the Black Movement Civil Rights

John F. Kennedy became the 35th President of the United States on 20 January 1960. In this paper I make the argument that foreign policy and the Cold War and other sensitive matters hence, Khrushchev and Berlin, 1961 along with Cuba and Castro, the Bay of Pigs 1962 of his administration only made the issues of the Civil Rights movement a domestic issues problematic and precariousness an unstable condition for the White House nevertheless, President Kennedy acted has a leader of the US government face with the issues of the Southern Democrats and the United States Congress and the Communist threat of the 60's.

John F. Kennedy during his term of office in the White House pledged to solve many problems of the nation. Kennedy was not "lighthearted"2 about the state. In his first State of the Union address on January 30 he pointed out his concerns in the areas of economy, housing, the elderly and crime... and the issues of racial segregation in America. On June 19, 1963 President Kennedy addressed the Congress on this concern of civil rights bill and Job Opportunities of 1954. "... The quotations of Kennedy during his administration, these difficulties are among the principal reasons for delay in carry out the 1954 decisions; and this delay cannot be justified to those who have been hurt as a result. Rights such as these, as the Supreme Court recently said, are present rights. They are not merely hopes to some future enjoyment of some formalistic constitutional promise. The basic guarantees of our Constitution are warrants for the here and now..."3

The guarantees made by Kennedy during his administration concerning civil rights and were not totally fulfilled during his Administration however; President Kennedy did understand that racism would damage Americas' leadership in a global market.

Domestics issues of blacks in America was a back glow on the stove of his executive orders. First, Kennedy did not have any personal relationships with any African Americans besides he lived in the North and in a state causing his Administration and the America government moved at a snail pace not because of his personal morals and views but the state of the Union during his presidency. I think it was the US Congress to some degree facilitated a part of this delay because of political traditions and personal feeling of elected members. In Kennedy on words he stated this statement in 1963... "We will not solve these problems by blaming any group or sections for the legacy which has been handed down by past generations... Kennedy understood that America leadership should not and cannot "cling to the patterns of the past"... Or be solved in the streets of the nation, it was his feeling also, that special groups both Black or White did not have the total answers it was a moral issue of the humans heart not only here in America but internationally as well.

Because Kennedy did solidify his opinion on this issues of Civil Rights with upcoming Black communities' and his family funding of 280 African students to come to the United States for educational reasons, which facts, I personally did not Know until this paper assignment. Leaders like Martin Luther King and his wife in Georgia during King Incarceration there. Kennedy created a platform in the White House for African Americans to visit him in his office it is my understand now that more black people can to visit him there than any other presidency of the United States.4

Secondly, the government was moving to slow in the minds of many African American people and these cultures of people begin to protect for this reason. Resulting in, creating an underground civil movement not militant at first but evolving in the African American community to deal with the problems of white violence in their communities of the Southern United States. For example, many grass- root African American leaderships with the power of students in black and white communities of the South and North during the 50's and 1960's examples of this student power was the freedom Riders in May 1961 while the President was trying to overcome the crises of the Bay of Pigs likewise, the Deacons for the Defense and Justice in the Black neighborhood of Bogalusa, Louisiana is one of those organizations that formed in this period.

The southern and northern states activist used the young people the youthfulness of the African Americans and white organizations seem to have a common ground with Kennedy. This energy was creating movements to challenge the issues racist segregationist traditions of black people in this country during the years of 1960-1964. I see this energy being used in the creation of the Peace Corps in 1960-61... Remarks of Kennedy upon signing the Peace Corps Bill, September 22, 1961, "Although, this an American Peace Corps the problem of the world development is not just an American problem." Kennedy wanted the human race to understand that we could solve the human issue, if we would work together for the good of all mankind.

The author JamesN.Giglio in the book "The Presidency of John F. Kennedy in chapter seven "The Travail of Civil Rights" writes, " No domestic struggle occupied the Kennedy presidency more intensely or for a longer duration than civil rights."

He attempts to improve racial issues "smoothly" and in the book by author Michael O' Brien composes in chapter nine "Initially President Kennedy goal was to control the civil rights movement suggesting voting.

On the same argument the author Robert Dallek in his book "John Kennedy" claimed on page fifty- five that "he struggled to find the means to reduce racial strife at home" stating that Kennedy could not create a pathway for the civil rights bill in Congress. In addition, what offerings should be paid for these rights of advantages? I enter here a statement from the past of a Black leader that saw this African American rights issue this way. "Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform.

The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters."

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.