Fox News declares Obama Winner!!!

You must be from an alternate universe. Please explain.

 

My thought exactly!

 

Well didnt he help with the civil rights acts? and famously get a bunch of students into southern universities? and go out of his way to do so, not just for them but to make a point.

Anyway, its not important. JFK is just one example of plenty who have just been harshly dismissed by Michelle Obama.

 

What is it with the weirdo posts lately?

 

For your information, Xerxes is partly right that JFK was no champion of civil rights. Despite his own personal experiences with discrimination as an Irish Catholic, he had no personal afflictions with the history of societal and systemic discrimination of blacks. He hadn't known any blacks, period. The issue was never one he pondered. As a U.S Senator, it is known that he opposed a civil rights legislation but he only did so because he felt it politically advantageous to do so.

As a candidate for president, it has been storied that he made a phonecall to Coretta Scott King but it is hard to believe that was anything other than a symbolic gesture to get black votes. Obviously, there might have been other motives but that seems the most logical given that he had no personal ties to the crusade for civil rights.

When elected, he failed - at least in the first 16 months of his presidency - to enact (or should i say propose) single piece of legislation related to civil rights. Black leaders and activists often wrote him and frequently mentioned the "pen" he sought to characterize his ability to end discrimination - on the campaign trail in 1960, he had told some civil rights activists that he would end racial discrimination with the stroke of a pen. And so, said leaders often sent him pens, perhaps as a reminder for him to keep to his word.

His rationale for lack of action on the issue was the rather understandable but still inexcusable reason that because many souther democrats sat on powerful committees and were chairmen, he had to work with them on other issues and any tilting towards the civil rights issue would no doubt incense them. And there is ample evidence for this. In the Hoover, Roosevelt and Truman administrations, many southern democrats blocked anti-lynching laws they felt was intrusive and on many other occasions, such as FDR's court packing, they often left presidents out to dry when they felt that the president was overreaching. So in all fairness, one has to put that in perspective.

Furthermore, he failed to support the freedom marches in the early 60s in Alabama and Georgia and he was famously opposed to the landmark "March on Washington", the same one where MLK gave his famous "I Have A Dream" speech. He felt that the civil rights activists were acting like a bunch of rabble-rousers and were twisting his arm too tight in asking for federal protection.

However, he did display courage in sending federal troops to help in the turbulent attempts to register by James Meredith and James Hood, in 1962 and 1963 respectively. Nonetheless, it is worth pointing out that government officials from Alabama and Mississippi, as they did in 1957, called the president and feared that there would be violence if the president did not act, hence the deployment of U.S Marshals.

In conclusion, many have argued that the 1964 Civil Rights Act, whilsst passed by LBJ, was actually on JFK's agenda but given the fact that JFK wasn't all that popular at the time of his death, escalation of the Vietnam problem and re-election time was around the corner - hence the goodwill trip to Texas -, the last thing he would have done would have been to try and pass laws that were vehemently opposed by the majority (read: white) of the electorate.

If anything, Lyndon Johnson the southerner, was more of a champions of civil rights than John F Kennedy. This is not to say that he wasn't a good man (or president for that matter), but history - actually, historians - often attempt to whitewash that bit.

 

Thank you very much for the history lesson. I guess I'll have to study it more.

 

Revisionism.

 

Why is that a 'weirdo post' ?

If its not true, or at least an issue then why did the whole country address it? and why has she publicly attempted to explain herself?

..Lets go diss your posts?

Thanks for the informative post Cris.

 

LBJ, a southern Democrat, was the one who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 after JFK couldn't be bothered with such a thing in his lifetime.

 

Maybe he would've gotten round to it if he hadn't been, like, assassinated.

 

Maybe you should read more.