LGBT POV

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963 – 49 46 years ago Sunday – during a campaign stop in Dallas, Texas.

It is hard to convey the impact this young President had in his three years in office– from inspiration (passing the torch to a new generation, the Peace Corps), to terrible mistakes (the Bay of Pigs) to expanding expanding our thinking beyond the 1950s conformity (landing on the Moon) and facing down Communism (the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis).

Kennedy also introduced Medicare – which was blocked and called “socialism” by Republicans and conservative Democrats. And he expanded President Eisenhower’s US presence in Vietnam, sending in more “military advisors” to “train” and prop up the corrupt government – supposedly to hold back falling “dominos” of encroaching Communism in the region. Long after his assassination, Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara revealed that Kennedy would have withdrawn from Vietnam after his re-election.

For 49 years, people have wondered what America – and the world – would have been like had JFK lived. The late Sen. Ted Kennedy and JFK’s daughter Caroline saw in Barack Obama the candidate who would best carry on where JFK had been stopped. Nowhere is that more poignant than in the movement for civil rights.

During his 1960 presidential election campaign against then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon, JFK, then a US Senator from Massachusetts, argued for a Civil Rights Act – which gave him over 70% of those African Americans who were able to vote at the time. By 1960, an estimated 42% of the population in the state of Mississippi was black – but only 2% were registered to vote.   Though Brown v Board of Education had been decided in 1954, segregation and Jim Crow laws persisted, prompting ever increasing civil disobedience for the right to vote and access public accommodations.

Kennedy stalled on delivering on his campaign promise for two years – though in 1961 he was forced to send 600 Federal marshals to Alabama to protect the Freedom Riders and African American students trying to enter Mississippi University.

In 1962, Alabama Gov. George Wallace said during his inauguration speech:

“I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

Then on April 3, 1963, a concerted, organized desegregation campaign was launched with sit-ins at restaurants and department stores. On Easter Sunday, Rev. Martin Luther King was among those brutally beaten and arrested – which resulted in King’s famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail:”

Here are some excerpts from King’s letter to provide some context for JFK’s decision to move the civil rights bill:

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights…..

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection…..

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro.”

(An aside: I strongly urge you to read the entire letter because the Religious Right is using MLK’s argument about “moral law” as an excuse to violate nondiscrimination laws regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.)

The following month, Birmingham police – under orders from police chief Eugene “Bull” Conner – used dogs and fire hoses against children as television cameras watched.

Most of America was repulsed; JKF had to act. On May 10, 1963, his government worked out what may have been the first requirement that local businesses hire on a “nondiscriminatory basis.”

Though he knew he faced stiff opposition from the radical right – the John Birchers and the Ku Klux Klan – and the Congressmembers who agreed with them – Kennedy nonetheless decided to introduce his civil rights bill.

On June 11, 1963, Governor George Wallace stood in the door of the University of Alabama blocking the entrance of Black students. Kennedy used that moment as a jumping off point for his address to the nation that night from the Oval Office – and address he gave without having first completed his speech. Here are some excerpts:

“This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened…..

[E]very American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case…..

One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.”

That next night Medgar Evers, a NAACP field organizer in Jackson, Mississippi, was murdered in the driveway of his home.

With the growing violence and tension, and a need to develop a strategy to pass the civil rights bill, JFK held a series of meetings with civil rights leaders in the White House. During the last of these meetings, on June 21,  A. Philip Randolph announced the plan for a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 23, 1963 in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Two months later, in front of a biracial audience of more than 250,000, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous ‘I have a dream” speech.

Lost to many is how integral the gay community was to this historic event. For that famous march that yielded one of the most important and spontaneous speeches in human history was organized by King’s openly gay friend and longtime civil rights leader, Bayard Rustin. (Rustin may have gained cache with the White House after the march, as indicated by his urgent telegram to JFK asking for federal troops to be sent to Selma, Alabama on Sept. 24, 1963.)

But racism – especially racism justified by the Bible - would not go quietly. And three weeks after the march, on Sept. 15, four little girls – 11-year-old Denise McNair and 14-year-olds: Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins – were in the basement dressing room of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama when a bomb exploded, killing all four. Riots and fires followed, during which two more teenagers were killed.

Almost three months to the day after the March on Washington, JFK was assassinated.

One can only wonder what the world would have been like had JFK lived.

Here is JFK’s complete address on racial equality – followed by the transcript.

The transcript of President John F. Kennedy’s speech to the nation on race:

President John F. Kennedy

The White House

June 11, 1963

Good evening my fellow citizens:

This afternoon, following a series of threats and defiant statements, the presence of Alabama National Guardsmen was required on the University of Alabama to carry out the final and unequivocal order of the United States District Court of the Northern District of Alabama. That order called for the admission of two clearly qualified young Alabama residents who happened to have been born Negro.

That they were admitted peacefully on the campus is due in good measure to the conduct of the students of the University of Alabama, who met their responsibilities in a constructive way.

I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Today we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free. And when Americans are sent to Viet-Nam or West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only. It ought to be possible, therefore, for American students of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed up by troops.

It ought to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation, such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores, without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street, and it ought to be possible for American citizens of any color to register to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal.

It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case.

The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the Nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing a high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day, one-third as much chance of completing college, one-third as much chance of becoming a professional man, twice as much chance of becoming unemployed, about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year, a life expectancy which is 7 years shorter, and the prospects of earning only half as much.

This is not a sectional issue. Difficulties over segregation and discrimination exist in every city, in every State of the Union, producing in many cities a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety. Nor is this a partisan issue. In a time of domestic crisis men of good will and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics. This is not even a legal or legislative issue alone. It is better to settle these matters in the courts than on the streets, and new laws are needed at every level, but law alone cannot make men see right.

We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.

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 will 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?

One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.

We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?

Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them.

The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand. Redress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades, and protests which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives.

We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives.

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.

Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality.

Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law. The Federal judiciary has upheld that proposition in the conduct of its affairs, including the employment of Federal personnel, the use of Federal facilities, and the sale of federally financed housing.

But there are other necessary measures which only the Congress can provide, and they must be provided at this session. The old code of equity law under which we live commands for every wrong a remedy, but in too many communities, in too many parts of the country, wrongs are inflicted on Negro citizens and there are no remedies at law. Unless the Congress acts, their only remedy is in the street.

I am, therefore, asking the Congress to enact legislation giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public–hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments.

This seems to me to be an elementary right. Its denial is an arbitrary indignity that no American in 1963 should have to endure, but many do.

I have recently met with scores of business leaders urging them to take voluntary action to end this discrimination and I have been encouraged by their response, and in the last 2 weeks over 75 cities have seen progress made in desegregating these kinds of facilities. But many are unwilling to act alone, and for this reason, nationwide legislation is needed if we are to move this problem from the streets to the courts.

I am also asking the Congress to authorize the Federal Government to participate more fully in lawsuits designed to end segregation in public education. We have succeeded in persuading many districts to desegregate voluntarily. Dozens have admitted Negroes without violence. Today a Negro is attending a State-supported institution in every one of our 50 States, but the pace is very slow.

Too many Negro children entering segregated grade schools at the time of the Supreme Court’s decision 9 years ago will enter segregated high schools this fall, having suffered a loss which can never be restored. The lack of an adequate education denies the Negro a chance to get a decent job.

The orderly implementation of the Supreme Court decision, therefore, cannot be left solely to those who may not have the economic resources to carry the legal action or who may be subject to harassment.

Other features will also be requested, including greater protection for the right to vote. But legislation, I repeat, cannot solve this problem alone. It must be solved in the homes of every American in every community across our country.

In this respect I want to pay tribute to those citizens North and South who have been working in their communities to make life better for all. They are acting not out of a sense of legal duty but out of a sense of human decency.

Like our soldiers and sailors in all parts of the world they are meeting freedom’s challenge on the firing line, and I salute them for their honor and their courage.

My fellow Americans, this is a problem which faces us all–in every city of the North as well as the South. Today there are Negroes unemployed, two or three times as many compared to whites, inadequate in education, moving into the large cities, unable to find work, young people particularly out of work without hope, denied equal rights, denied the opportunity to eat at a restaurant or lunch counter or go to a movie theater, denied the right to a decent education, denied almost today the right to attend a State university even though qualified. It seems to me that these are matters which concern us all, not merely Presidents or Congressmen or Governors, but every citizen of the United States.

This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents.

We cannot say to 10 percent of the population that you can’t have that right; that your children cannot have the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go into the streets and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that.

Therefore, I am asking for your help in making it easier for us to move ahead and to provide the kind of equality of treatment which we would want ourselves; to give a chance for every child to be educated to the limit of his talents.

As I have said before, not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or an equal motivation, but they should have an equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation, to make something of themselves.

We have a right to expect that the Negro community will be responsible, will uphold the law, but they have a right to expect that the law will be fair, that the Constitution will be color blind, as Justice Harlan said at the turn of the century.

This is what we are talking about and this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for, and in meeting it I ask the support of all our citizens.

Thank you very much.