It was early winter 1963, and the Civil Rights Movement was in high gear.
1963 had been seen many tragedies in the movement. Medgar Evers had
been assassinated in Jackson, Miss. Four little girls had been murdered
when a racist's bomb went off in a Birmingham, Ala., church.
There had also been victories. The March on Washington had drawn more
than 250,000 people to the National Mall, where Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr, the leader of the movement, had inspired a generation with his
iconic "I Have A Dream" speech. Volunteers, both Black and White, had
converged on the South by the legions, empowering Blacks to register to
vote, and to push back against racist policies.
People whose voices had been quieted by intimidation and violence, had
banded together to demand their rights. Churches, had brought the word
of freedom to their congregations and northern newspapers had begun to
regularly to chronicle civil rights abuses.
President John F. Kennedy, who hailed from a family where public
service was expected, had been more sympathetic to the civil rights
cause than his predecessors. He had designated his brother, Robert F.
Kennedy, the U.S. Attorney General, as his official change agent on
civil rights issues.
Working together, the Kennedys had sent representatives from the
Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate violence against civil
rights activists and to challenge racist and segregationist policies.
African Americans believed they had a friend in the White House after his election.
So when news came that Kennedy had been fatally shot in Dallas on Nov.
22, 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald, a pall fell over the nation's Black
leadership and many Black citizens.
A front page story under the headline “JFK’s death is mourned by a
nation,” described the feeling among Blacks. “The assassination of
President Kennedy in Dallas…stunned, angered and saddened colored
citizens as it did most other Americans.”
Blacks joined the nation in mourning the loss of the charismatic young leader.
“We have lost the youngest President, the finest friend of the poor,
the humble, and the disadvantaged this generation has known,” said an
editorial that ran in the {AFRO} on Nov. 30, 1963. “He was a martyr in
the cause of human rights—civil, political and social equality of
colored people. His fate was the same as the other great President,
advocate of freedom and emancipator, Abraham Lincoln…”
In the wake of Kennedy's death, President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had
gotten to know something about the plight of minorities while teaching
Mexicans in Texas shortly after graduating from college, took on the
civil rights issue. During his presidency, both the Civil Rights Act of
1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed.
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