To What Extent Did President Kennedy Win The Civil Rights Movement

With a strong campaigned appeal, President Kennedy was elected into office, to black voters. President Kennedy and his administration had vitality and glamour but there was a struggle going on for civil rights. The President had promised equality however; he was having a hard time redeeming these words. Civil rights groups sent pens to the White House with “Ink for Jack’ written on them. As the 1960s progressed the civil rights movement became more radical and violent. Groups of Freedom Riders, set out to stop segregation of blacks in bus terminals. May 1961 a mob of whites set a Freedom Ride bus on fire near Anniston, Alabama. A personal representative to Attorney General Robert Kennedy was beaten in another anti-Freedom Ride Riot. This was proving that President Kennedy’s administration would have to join the civil rights movement. President Kennedy was cautious about the partnership
led a campaign against discrimination. It was in Birmingham, Alabama the most segregated city in America. In the past the attempt to break racial discrimination led to burning of crosses and 18 bomb attacks since 1957. The world witnessed peaceful civil rights marchers being deterred by police with attack dogs and cattle prods on television. The most horrific was fire hoses being turned on the demonstrators. The force of the high pressure hoses was enough to knock marchers to the ground, so much so that it would have taken out lose bricks from houses and stripped bark from a tree. To everyone’s dismay it jolted children down the road like tumbleweed. This led King to the March on Washington where he gave his famous speech “ I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” (897). Violence continued and a black Mississippi civil rights worker was gunned down during President Kennedy’s television