Earlier this month, C-SPAN unveiled its newest Presidential all-time rankings. While many focused on Obama's first appearance on the list and his lofty No. 12 ranking, this website is much more interested by the man who is President at the time of King's famous letter, John F. Kennedy. Kennedy has always been a captivating and complicated figure in American history. The patriarch of "Camelot" looked so perfect and professional on the outside but dealt with many difficulties and demons on the inside. Kennedy fell slightly since the 91 historians last did these rankings in 2009, falling from 6th to 8th. Like any good teacher, these historians also graded on a rubric featuring several key categories of greatness (at least according to them). One that was particularly noteworthy for this seminar was "equal rights/justice for all". This is a category Kennedy scored high in and civil rights certainly was a defining theme of his presidency. However, in order to understand King and his impact in America we must also understand the role Kennedy played (or wanted to play) in this critical moment of history. When it came to Kennedy and the 1960 Presidential campaign, civil rights was an issue best left out of the talking points.
As a Democrat, Kennedy was witnessing first hand the schism within the party. This schism was nothing new, it had begun with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the big government revolution of the New Deal and was further entrenched with the Dixiecrat Party in 1948. Having the staunch conservative white Southern Democrats and the liberal Northern whites/African Americans in the same political party was untenable. Sure, Democrats could live in two separate universes at the local and state level but the national scene was much more complicated. What did the Democrats stand for? Were they the party of "liberty and justice for all" or the party of "traditional values" and "states rights" which long-time Democrats like Harry Byrd and Strom Thurmond espoused on a daily basis? Kennedy wanted to pacify both groups but he was already at a disadvantage being a Catholic from Massachusetts. White Southerners did not trust this young, politically inexperienced outsider to protect their interests. It was this fear of alienating the Southern base that led Kennedy to select Texas Senator and former rival Lyndon B. Johnson as his Vice Presidential candidate in 1960. It may have placated the South but it did not fix the growing ideological divide with the Democrats. Besides shoring up the white Southern vote, Kennedy wanted to continue picking up votes from African Americans across the nation. The "party of Lincoln" had been losing ground since 1932 in black votes and President Eisenhower's laissez-faire attitude towards civil rights had not endeared many activists to his side. Republican candidate Richard Nixon had a stronger civil rights record than Eisenhower and Kennedy knew that this election was going to be tight. In the fall of 1960, King was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia during a demonstration. Kennedy knew he had a thin line to walk, he had to take an action strong enough to advocate for civil rights without losing white Southern votes. As he would often do throughout the next three years, Kennedy recruited his brother Robert to help. JFK contacted King's wife, Coretta Scott and offered his sympathies and well-wishes while his brother tried to strong arm the police into releasing King. Keep in mind this was partially because they sympathized with King and partially because they did not need a civil rights kerfuffle right before the election exacerbating the divide. Despite any ulterior motives, the move worked out perfectly. King was released, his wife praised JFK's courtesy of the phone call and Martin Luther King Sr. officially endorsed Kennedy for President. The result? Kennedy won one of the closest elections in U.S. History thanks, in part, to carrying 71% of the African American vote. The other consequence was that King and his compatriots learned a valuable lesson. Kennedy would do the right thing, but only when pressured. Indeed history showed that the Civil Rights Movement was forcing Kennedy's hand, from the sit-ins, to the Freedoms and now to Birmingham. King realized the necessity of creating a firestorm when he headed into Birmingham. He knew that these were the dire situations that made JFK go against the Southern Democratic brass and risk political repercussions. So while Kennedy was a man who did "promote justice for all" as President, he did not do so without a little bit of help and persuasion. This was a critical element in explaining how 1963 will play out in American history.
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