16-01-2017, 08:01 PM
Part 4:
By openly allying himself with King, Kennedy was giving the civil rights movement ballast and hope. After he won the White House, this encouraged the movement leaders to become more active under his presidency than they had ever been before. So now a certain synergy entered into the equation. Something that would not have happened under Eisenhower and Nixon. In fact, Harris Wofford had written a memo to Kennedy in December of 1960 stating the major problem with civil rights had been the fact that there had been no real leadership in the executive branch or congress to supplement the work of the courts.
In that memo, Wofford essentially mapped out the path Kennedy should take. He said that in 1961 there did not seem to be any way to get a real omnibus civil rights law through the senate because of the almost guaranteed filibuster by the southerners. Wofford proposed changing the cloture rules on filibuster to circumvent that tactic. Which is something that Kennedy had mentioned in his above referenced 1957 letter to Alfred Jarrette. In the meantime, Wofford proposed that Kennedy use executive actions to advance the cause.
Kennedy immediately did so by shifting the balance of power on the Commission on Civil Rights. This was a body set up by the 1957 Civil Rights Act. It had the power to launch investigations, hold hearings and make recommendations as far as exposing discriminatory laws went. Eisenhower had made it a rather moderate agency. He manned it with two integrationists, two segregationists, and two middle of the roaders. In March of 1961, Kennedy had an opportunity to make two new appointments. In doing so he tilted the balance toward the integrationists. He furthered this aim by also naming a staff director who was also an integrationist. (Bernstein, pgs. 50-51)
Kennedy also urged a kind of affirmative action program for all the cabinet level departments. He wanted figures on how many black Americans were employed by each department secretary. When the numbers were returned, he made it clear they were not nearly satisfactory. This sent each secretary scrambling to find suitable black employees in order not to be dressed down by the president at the next meeting. (ibid, p. 53) Kennedy also made it clear that he would not attend functions at any institution that practiced segregation. This created a wave of resignations by White House employees from such places like athletic clubs and golf courses. (ibid)
It was against this drastically new backdrop that the civil rights movement now began to truly assert itself e.g. the Freedom Riders, King's SCLC, James Farmer's CORE. For instance, James Meredith sent away for his application to the University of Mississippi the day after Kennedy was inaugurated. (Bernstein, p. 76) For as Wofford and Bernstein have written, there was never any doubt that Kennedy would support these groups. (Ibid, p. 65) In fact, the White House arranged financing in some cases for them to launch voter registration drives. It was simply a matter of what tactics would be used. But there was a byproduct to these dramatic confrontations e.g. Nicolas Katzenbach removing George Wallace from the front gate at the University of Alabama, President Kennedy calling out the military to quell the violence over Meredith at Ole Miss, Robert Kennedy ordering 500 marshals into Montgomery to protect the Freedom Riders. That was this: the more these ugly confrontations were televised, the more people outside the south became repelled by the actions of the white southerners. In other words, through television, the incidents had a dual effect: the spectacles began to turn people who had previously been apathetic on the subject into civil rights advocates. In turn, this began to isolate the segregationists of the south. Through that double movement, the balance of power began to shift in congress away from Eastland and toward Kennedy and King.
As Wofford, Robert Kennedy and Bernstein have all noted, the culminating showdown was in Birmingham, Alabama. With a black population of forty per cent, it was probably the most segregated big city in the south. For example, although it was industrialized, less than five per cent of the Hayes Aircraft workforce was black. (ibid, p. 85) The symbol of Birmingham's unstinting fealty to segregation was Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor. Connor was so defiant in the face of Bobby Kennedy's attempts to integrate the south that he called him a "bobby-soxer" and challenged him to a fistfight. (ibid, p. 86) Because of these factors, the city was a prime target for demonstrations. King had an executive meeting of the SCLC in January of 1962 to plan the assault on Birmingham.
By openly allying himself with King, Kennedy was giving the civil rights movement ballast and hope. After he won the White House, this encouraged the movement leaders to become more active under his presidency than they had ever been before. So now a certain synergy entered into the equation. Something that would not have happened under Eisenhower and Nixon. In fact, Harris Wofford had written a memo to Kennedy in December of 1960 stating the major problem with civil rights had been the fact that there had been no real leadership in the executive branch or congress to supplement the work of the courts.
In that memo, Wofford essentially mapped out the path Kennedy should take. He said that in 1961 there did not seem to be any way to get a real omnibus civil rights law through the senate because of the almost guaranteed filibuster by the southerners. Wofford proposed changing the cloture rules on filibuster to circumvent that tactic. Which is something that Kennedy had mentioned in his above referenced 1957 letter to Alfred Jarrette. In the meantime, Wofford proposed that Kennedy use executive actions to advance the cause.
Kennedy immediately did so by shifting the balance of power on the Commission on Civil Rights. This was a body set up by the 1957 Civil Rights Act. It had the power to launch investigations, hold hearings and make recommendations as far as exposing discriminatory laws went. Eisenhower had made it a rather moderate agency. He manned it with two integrationists, two segregationists, and two middle of the roaders. In March of 1961, Kennedy had an opportunity to make two new appointments. In doing so he tilted the balance toward the integrationists. He furthered this aim by also naming a staff director who was also an integrationist. (Bernstein, pgs. 50-51)
Kennedy also urged a kind of affirmative action program for all the cabinet level departments. He wanted figures on how many black Americans were employed by each department secretary. When the numbers were returned, he made it clear they were not nearly satisfactory. This sent each secretary scrambling to find suitable black employees in order not to be dressed down by the president at the next meeting. (ibid, p. 53) Kennedy also made it clear that he would not attend functions at any institution that practiced segregation. This created a wave of resignations by White House employees from such places like athletic clubs and golf courses. (ibid)
It was against this drastically new backdrop that the civil rights movement now began to truly assert itself e.g. the Freedom Riders, King's SCLC, James Farmer's CORE. For instance, James Meredith sent away for his application to the University of Mississippi the day after Kennedy was inaugurated. (Bernstein, p. 76) For as Wofford and Bernstein have written, there was never any doubt that Kennedy would support these groups. (Ibid, p. 65) In fact, the White House arranged financing in some cases for them to launch voter registration drives. It was simply a matter of what tactics would be used. But there was a byproduct to these dramatic confrontations e.g. Nicolas Katzenbach removing George Wallace from the front gate at the University of Alabama, President Kennedy calling out the military to quell the violence over Meredith at Ole Miss, Robert Kennedy ordering 500 marshals into Montgomery to protect the Freedom Riders. That was this: the more these ugly confrontations were televised, the more people outside the south became repelled by the actions of the white southerners. In other words, through television, the incidents had a dual effect: the spectacles began to turn people who had previously been apathetic on the subject into civil rights advocates. In turn, this began to isolate the segregationists of the south. Through that double movement, the balance of power began to shift in congress away from Eastland and toward Kennedy and King.
As Wofford, Robert Kennedy and Bernstein have all noted, the culminating showdown was in Birmingham, Alabama. With a black population of forty per cent, it was probably the most segregated big city in the south. For example, although it was industrialized, less than five per cent of the Hayes Aircraft workforce was black. (ibid, p. 85) The symbol of Birmingham's unstinting fealty to segregation was Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor. Connor was so defiant in the face of Bobby Kennedy's attempts to integrate the south that he called him a "bobby-soxer" and challenged him to a fistfight. (ibid, p. 86) Because of these factors, the city was a prime target for demonstrations. King had an executive meeting of the SCLC in January of 1962 to plan the assault on Birmingham.