In 1963, the path to civil rights was through Birmingham. Despite earning 70 percent of the black vote in 1960, President Kennedy remained reluctant to support civil rights. Even three years into his presidency, Kennedy gave only lip service to the need to protect the "basic rights of its citizens" in his State of the Union Address. President Kennedy was clear that he supported the right to vote regardless of race or color, but he was not ready to put the full force of his presidency behind it. In the spring of 1963, a letter from Martin Luther King Jr. while sitting in Birmingham jail changed everything.
There was no question the denial of the vote was impacting black communities. Just two years earlier the Civil Rights Commission published a five-volume comprehensive report concluding that while the "majority of Negro American citizens do not now suffer discriminatory denial of their right to vote", voter discrimination still existed in America and where it did exist it was coupled with high rates of poverty, low education and lack of job opportunities. The report found that in counties where blacks were deprived of the vote, courtroom facilities, schools, public libraries, and transportation facilities remained consistently unequal between the races. The report made it clear, the unrestricted right to vote was the key to bringing about equal rights to all of America's citizens, but Kennedy's election victory was slim and his majority in Congress left him cautious. Rather than push the south to support civil rights legislation, he instead appointed an unprecedented number of African Americans to his administration and empowered the Civil Rights Commission. He put Lyndon Johnson, his Vice President in charge of the powerful Equal Employment Opportunity committee and urged his Attorney General Bobby Kennedy to turn the attention of the courts to voting rights, but it remained a slow march to civil rights, too slow for those suffering from the impact of blatant racism and discrimination counties across the south.
Here are words that President John F. Kennedy delivered to Congress and the nation in his final State of the Union Address in 1963. No urgent need for action, and no real tug on the emotions of the American people, just a few words to keep the slow march moving.
"Third, we need to strengthen our Nation by protecting the basic rights of its citizens:
--The right to competent counsel must be assured to every man accused of crime in Federal court, regardless of his means.
--And the most precious and powerful right in the world, the right to vote in a free American election, must not be denied to any citizen on grounds of his race or color. I wish that all qualified Americans permitted to vote were willing to vote, but surely in this centennial year of Emancipation all those who are willing to vote should always be permitted."Meanwhile in 1963, the South was burning. The governor of Alabama was pledging "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." as riots were erupting in Mississippi and Alabama. In the spring of 1963 Martin Luther King Jr., and Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth initiated a coordinated campaign of mass protest in Birmingham Alabama. The local authorities seemed to have the upper hand and placed an injunction on King banning protests of any sort, but when King decided to violate the injunction he was arrested and jailed on Good Friday, April 12. King now sat in jail and was being condemned by the leading moderate white clergy as an extremist. Things looked grim, but Martin Luther King would not give in. They say the pen is mightier than the sword, and Martin Luther King wrote his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail". In this letter, King did not write to Wallace or his detractors, but to his fellow clergymen and moreover to all the moderate American's who wanted to slow down the march for freedom including President John F. Kennedy.
King wrote that he had hoped the "white moderate would see this need". King lamented that perhaps he was expecting too much and that perhaps he should have realized that only a few in the "oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race". King shared that he had hoped more would see the vision of the injustice that needed to be rooted out, by "persistent and determined action". He was thankful for those who did, but they were too few. These few were "unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful ‘action’ antidotes to combat the disease of segregation." King's letter did not jump-start the movement, but it renewed the resurgency that awakened people all over the country. Within weeks, the youth in Alabama had the courage to face down Sheriff Bull Connor as the world watched Birmingham erupt into chaos and on June 11, 1963 President John F. Kennedy stood in front of a live television audience and delivered his famous Civil Rights Address. In his speech, Kennedy told America that we faced a "moral crisis" and to do nothing is to invite "shame as well as violence". Kennedy now promised that he would ask Congress to make a commitment that "race has no place in American life or law".
"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 a series of forthright cases. The executive branch has adopted 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."Martin Luther King was so moved, that he is reported as saying, "Can you believe that white man not only stepped up to the plate, he hit it over the fence!"
References
Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2020). Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union. | The American Presidency Project. [online] Available at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/annual-message-the-congress-the-state-the-union-3 [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].Africa.upenn.edu. (2020). Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]. [online] Available at: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].
Jfklibrary.org. (2020). Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights | JFK Library. [online] Available at: https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/televised-address-to-the-nation-on-civil-rights [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].
Rieder, J. (2020). The Day President Kennedy Embraced Civil Rights—and the Story Behind It. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/the-day-president-kennedy-embraced-civil-rights-and-the-story-behind-it/276749/ [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].
Stateoftheunionhistory.com. (2020). 1961 John F. Kennedy - Commission on Civil Rights Report - Voting. [online] Available at: http://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2019/03/1961-john-f-kennedy-commission-on-civil.html [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].
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