25/06: TIME Magazine and JFK and Civil Rights
Category: American History and Politics
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
More notes on the "6th Annual Making of America Issue" of TIME Magazine, which features a "new take on JFK."
The special issue asserts that we have much to "learn from JFK." In addition to understanding "how to lead in a dangerous world," and "what candidates should say about faith," we can also come to understand, through a careful study of the 35th president, exactly "why civil rights can't be compromised."
I am critical of TIME and this project in terms of editorial judgment, methodology and objectivity. You may read those introductory comments and a skeptical appraisal of TIME's hagiographic depiction of Kennedy as a foreign policy visionary in my previous post here.
Part II (from the TIME headline): A Slow Road to Civil Rights:
"As President, Kennedy initially moved cautiously on segregation. But by the spring of 1963, he knew that more was needed."
Read the article (by Robert Dallek) in its entirety here.
Dallek's thesis:
"[The] Kennedys—John and [Bobby]—have been given too little credit for progress on resolving America's oldest and greatest social divide. Even if J.F.K.'s passion for the cause came late, it made it possible for his successor, Lyndon Johnson, a white Texan, to become the architect of desegregation."
Dallek, a noted public intellectual and celebrated biographer of JFK and LBJ, seems in a good position to offer special insight and perspective on this topic.
However, Dallek's account omits events absolutely essential to a full understanding of the story (events, unfortunately, that conflict with his thesis). His negligence is so egregious, in fact, that the narrative comes very near to historical malpractice.
Dallek rightly prefaces his reappraisal with the admission that "historians have tended to believe that little more than political cynicism ever animated John Kennedy's response to civil rights."
Dallek further acknowledges:
Kennedy was reluctant to support civil rights legislation before his election (Civil Rights Act of 1957) and afterwards.
Kennedy ignored civil rights in his famously idealistic stirring Inaugural Address.
Kennedy broke a campaign promise to civil rights leaders to sign an Executive Order to desegregate federally financed housing.
Kennedy pleased segregationists with his judicial appointments, most of whom were likely to maintain the racial status quo in the South.
In 1962, Kennedy offered only tepid support for a crucial demonstration in Albany, Georgia, and he tarried too long before intervening to protect James Meredith at Ole Miss. Then 1963 began with the President's flat refusal to ask Congress for a comprehensive civil rights bill.
Dallek rightly characterizes Kennedy as less than a "moral crusader" on the issue of civil rights, more interested in counting Southern votes than righting racial injustices. Dallek characterizes him, "more of a civil rights opportunist than a passionate convert to the cause."
But all that changed, according to Dallek, as a result of the "crisis in Birmingham, [which] changed his mind about the imperative of civil rights, and thus was born Kennedy's real legacy on this front." According to Dallek, the barbarity of the white power structure in Birmingham unleashed on the black demonstrators (attack dogs, fire hoses, cattle prods, etc.) precipitated a Kennedy epiphany. The South will never reform itself, Kennedy decided. "The only solution Kennedy saw," reports Dallek, "was a major federal civil rights statute that outlawed segregation in...public accommodations."
Kennedy then rushed to make a national speech addressing the crisis on 11 June 1963 in which he called civil rights a "moral issue" and proposed a bill, the essence of which would, indeed, become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Kennedy's heart, Dallek asserts, now "trumped any self-serving political calculations."
Dallek's glorious conclusion:
"Although Kennedy's assassination five months later deprived him of the chance to sign the civil rights bill into law, he had finally done the right thing. That its passage in 1964 came under Johnson's Administration should not exclude Kennedy from the credit for a landmark measure that decisively improved American society forever. Although J.F.K. had been slow to rise to the challenge, he did ultimately meet it. That gives him a place in the pantheon of American Presidents who, in his own words, were profiles in courage."
Wow! That is high praise worthy of Ted Sorenson.
What does this article neglect to mention?
1. Kennedy's "political calculations" were not wholly absent from these deliberations. Convinced that Barry Goldwater would gain the Republican nomination in 1964, the Kennedy brain trust was already writing off the Deep South. A civil rights bill was not political suicide for a campaign looking to win moderates in the heartland and cognizant that the formerly "Solid South" was increasingly hostile.
2. Kennedy's epiphany was less than complete. By the summer of 1963, Kennedy was convinced that nothing greater than a watered-down version of his bill had any chance in Congress. Moreover, the President used all his powers of persuasion (unsuccessfully) to convince civil rights leaders that a March on Washington in support of the legislation that summer was a horrible idea.
3. By the fall of 1963, the bill was dead. The March on Washington had been a monumental success (contrary to the President's pessimistic predictions)--but Kennedy had failed to bring Congress to a legislative consensus--not even the "watered-down" variety. With the election coming in 1964, a civil rights bill looked extremely unlikely for a long time to come.
The truth is that full honors rightly belong to Lyndon Johnson for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the following year. True, Johnson employed the ultra-emotional moment of national mourning to leverage Congress into finishing the work of the "martyred President," but credit LBJ, the former majority leader, for his legislative genius and commitment to securing these monumental steps toward equality.
Why did Dallek allow himself to be a party to this egregious mischaracterization of events? Good question. The events omitted in the TIME encomium are covered in Dallek's 2003 much-acclaimed Kennedy biography, An Unfinished Life.
A bad edit? I can only hope.
My worst fear is that Robert Dallek would be willing to pervert his sacred responsibilities as an historian to get along with the in-crowd.
As for TIME, my contempt grows stronger with each article. Next: "The Catholic Conundrum: Kennedy's 1960 campaign as a master class in how a candidate of any faith should address questions about religious belief."
Read my earlier critique (Part I) here.
The special issue asserts that we have much to "learn from JFK." In addition to understanding "how to lead in a dangerous world," and "what candidates should say about faith," we can also come to understand, through a careful study of the 35th president, exactly "why civil rights can't be compromised."
I am critical of TIME and this project in terms of editorial judgment, methodology and objectivity. You may read those introductory comments and a skeptical appraisal of TIME's hagiographic depiction of Kennedy as a foreign policy visionary in my previous post here.
Part II (from the TIME headline): A Slow Road to Civil Rights:
"As President, Kennedy initially moved cautiously on segregation. But by the spring of 1963, he knew that more was needed."
Read the article (by Robert Dallek) in its entirety here.
Dallek's thesis:
"[The] Kennedys—John and [Bobby]—have been given too little credit for progress on resolving America's oldest and greatest social divide. Even if J.F.K.'s passion for the cause came late, it made it possible for his successor, Lyndon Johnson, a white Texan, to become the architect of desegregation."
Dallek, a noted public intellectual and celebrated biographer of JFK and LBJ, seems in a good position to offer special insight and perspective on this topic.
However, Dallek's account omits events absolutely essential to a full understanding of the story (events, unfortunately, that conflict with his thesis). His negligence is so egregious, in fact, that the narrative comes very near to historical malpractice.
Dallek rightly prefaces his reappraisal with the admission that "historians have tended to believe that little more than political cynicism ever animated John Kennedy's response to civil rights."
Dallek further acknowledges:
Kennedy was reluctant to support civil rights legislation before his election (Civil Rights Act of 1957) and afterwards.
Kennedy ignored civil rights in his famously idealistic stirring Inaugural Address.
Kennedy broke a campaign promise to civil rights leaders to sign an Executive Order to desegregate federally financed housing.
Kennedy pleased segregationists with his judicial appointments, most of whom were likely to maintain the racial status quo in the South.
In 1962, Kennedy offered only tepid support for a crucial demonstration in Albany, Georgia, and he tarried too long before intervening to protect James Meredith at Ole Miss. Then 1963 began with the President's flat refusal to ask Congress for a comprehensive civil rights bill.
Dallek rightly characterizes Kennedy as less than a "moral crusader" on the issue of civil rights, more interested in counting Southern votes than righting racial injustices. Dallek characterizes him, "more of a civil rights opportunist than a passionate convert to the cause."
But all that changed, according to Dallek, as a result of the "crisis in Birmingham, [which] changed his mind about the imperative of civil rights, and thus was born Kennedy's real legacy on this front." According to Dallek, the barbarity of the white power structure in Birmingham unleashed on the black demonstrators (attack dogs, fire hoses, cattle prods, etc.) precipitated a Kennedy epiphany. The South will never reform itself, Kennedy decided. "The only solution Kennedy saw," reports Dallek, "was a major federal civil rights statute that outlawed segregation in...public accommodations."
Kennedy then rushed to make a national speech addressing the crisis on 11 June 1963 in which he called civil rights a "moral issue" and proposed a bill, the essence of which would, indeed, become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Kennedy's heart, Dallek asserts, now "trumped any self-serving political calculations."
Dallek's glorious conclusion:
"Although Kennedy's assassination five months later deprived him of the chance to sign the civil rights bill into law, he had finally done the right thing. That its passage in 1964 came under Johnson's Administration should not exclude Kennedy from the credit for a landmark measure that decisively improved American society forever. Although J.F.K. had been slow to rise to the challenge, he did ultimately meet it. That gives him a place in the pantheon of American Presidents who, in his own words, were profiles in courage."
Wow! That is high praise worthy of Ted Sorenson.
What does this article neglect to mention?
1. Kennedy's "political calculations" were not wholly absent from these deliberations. Convinced that Barry Goldwater would gain the Republican nomination in 1964, the Kennedy brain trust was already writing off the Deep South. A civil rights bill was not political suicide for a campaign looking to win moderates in the heartland and cognizant that the formerly "Solid South" was increasingly hostile.
2. Kennedy's epiphany was less than complete. By the summer of 1963, Kennedy was convinced that nothing greater than a watered-down version of his bill had any chance in Congress. Moreover, the President used all his powers of persuasion (unsuccessfully) to convince civil rights leaders that a March on Washington in support of the legislation that summer was a horrible idea.
3. By the fall of 1963, the bill was dead. The March on Washington had been a monumental success (contrary to the President's pessimistic predictions)--but Kennedy had failed to bring Congress to a legislative consensus--not even the "watered-down" variety. With the election coming in 1964, a civil rights bill looked extremely unlikely for a long time to come.
The truth is that full honors rightly belong to Lyndon Johnson for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the following year. True, Johnson employed the ultra-emotional moment of national mourning to leverage Congress into finishing the work of the "martyred President," but credit LBJ, the former majority leader, for his legislative genius and commitment to securing these monumental steps toward equality.
Why did Dallek allow himself to be a party to this egregious mischaracterization of events? Good question. The events omitted in the TIME encomium are covered in Dallek's 2003 much-acclaimed Kennedy biography, An Unfinished Life.
A bad edit? I can only hope.
My worst fear is that Robert Dallek would be willing to pervert his sacred responsibilities as an historian to get along with the in-crowd.
As for TIME, my contempt grows stronger with each article. Next: "The Catholic Conundrum: Kennedy's 1960 campaign as a master class in how a candidate of any faith should address questions about religious belief."
Read my earlier critique (Part I) here.
