John F. Kennedy's 1963 Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights

[Music] now an address by the president of the united states speaking live from washington good evening my fellow citizens this afternoon following a series of threats and defiant statements the presence of alabama national guardsmen was required on the university of alabama to carry out the final and unequivocal order of the united states district court of the northern district of alabama that order called for the admission of two clearly qualified young alabama residents who happened to have been born negro that they were admitted peacefully on the campus is due in good measure to the conduct of the students of the university of alabama who met their responsibilities in a constructive way i hope that every american regardless of where he lives will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents this nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds it was founded on the principle that all men are created equal and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened today we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free and when americans are sent to vietnam or west berlin we do not ask for whites only it ought to be possible therefore for american students of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed up by troops it ought to be possible for american consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street and it ought to be possible for american citizens of any color to register and to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal it ought to be possible in short for every american to enjoy the privileges of being american without regard to his race or his color in short every american ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated as one would wish his children to be treated but this is not the case the negro baby born in america today regardless of the section of the state in which he is born has about one half as much chance of completing a high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day one third is much chance of completing college one-third is much chance of becoming a professional man twice as much chance of becoming unemployed about one-sevenths as much chance of earning ten thousand dollars a year a life expectancy which is seven years shorter and the prospects of earning only half as much this is not a sectional issue difficulties over segregation and discrimination exist in every city in every state of the union producing in many cities a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety nor is this a partisan issue in a time of domestic crisis men of good will and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics this is not even a legal or legislative issue alone it is better to settle these matters in the courts than on the streets and new laws are needed at every level but law alone cannot make men see right we are confronted primarily with a moral issue it is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the american constitution the heart of the question is whether all americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities whether we are going to treat our fellow americans as we want to be treated if an american because his skin is dark cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public if he cannot send his children to the best public school available if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him if in short he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place who among us would then be content with the councils of patience and delay 100 years of delay have passed since president lincoln freed the slaves yet their heirs their grandsons are not fully free they are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice they are not yet not yet freed from social and economic oppression and this nation for all its hopes and all its boats will not be fully free until all its citizens are free we preach freedom around the world and we mean it and we cherish our freedom here at home but are we to say to the world and much more importantly to each other that this is the land of the free except for the negroes that we have no second class citizens except negroes that we have no class or caste system no ghettos no master race except with respect to negros now the time has come for this nation to fulfill its promise the events in birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or state our legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them the fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city north and south where legal remedies are not at hand regress is sought in the streets in demonstrations parades and protests which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives we face therefore a moral crisis as a country and a people it cannot be met by repressive police action it cannot be left to increase demonstrations in the streets it cannot be quieted by token moves or talk it is a 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 facts 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 is 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 but there are other necessary measures which only the congress can provide and they must be provided at this session the old code of equity law under which we live commands for every wrong a remedy but in too many communities in too many parts of the country wrongs are inflicted on negro citizens and there are no remedies at law unless the congress acts their only remedy is the street i am therefore asking the congress to enact legislation giving all americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public hotels restaurants theaters retail stores and similar establishments this seems to me to be an elementary right its denial is an arbitrary indignity that no american in 1963 should have to endure but many do i recently met with scores of business leaders urging them to take voluntary action to end this discrimination and i've been encouraged by their response and in the last two weeks over 75 cities have seen progress made in desegregating these kinds of facilities but many are unwilling to act alone and for this reason nationwide legislation is needed if we are to move this problem from the streets to the courts i'm also asking congress to authorize the federal government to participate more fully in lawsuits designed to end segregation in public education we have succeeded in persuading many districts to desegregate voluntarily dozens have admitted negroes without violence today a negro is attending a state-supported institution in every one of our 50 states but this pace is very slow too many negro children entering segregated grade schools at the time of the supreme court's decision nine years ago molina segregated high schools this fall having suffered a loss which can never be restored the lack of inadequate education denies the negro a chance to get a decent job the orderly implementation of the supreme court decision therefore cannot be left solely to those who may not have the economic resources to carry the legal legal action or who may be subject to harassment other features will be also requested including greater protection for the right to vote but legislation i repeat cannot solve this problem alone it must be solved in the homes of every american in every community across our country in this respect i want to pay tribute to those citizens north and south who've been working in their communities to make life better for all they are acting not out a sense of legal duty but out of the sense of human decency like our soldiers and sailors in all parts of the world they are meeting freedom's challenge on the firing line and i salute them for their honor and their courage my fellow americans this is a problem which faces us all in every city of the north as well as the south today there are negroes unemployed two or three times as many compared to whites inadequate education moving into the large cities unable to find work young people particularly out of work without hope denied equal rights denied the opportunity to eat at a restaurant or a lunch counter or go to a movie theater denied the right to a decent education denied almost today the right to attend a state university even though qualified seems to me that these are matters which concern us all not merely presidents or congressmen or governors but every citizen of the united states this is one country it has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents we cannot say to ten percent of the population that you can't have that right your children can't have the chance to develop whatever talents they have that the only way that they're going to get their rights is to go in the street and demonstrate i think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that therefore i'm asking for your help in making it easier for us to move ahead and provide the kind of equality of treatment which we would want ourselves to give a chance for every child to be educated to the limit of his talent as i've said before not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or equal motivation but they should have the equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation to make something of themselves we have a right to expect that the negro community will be responsible will uphold the law but they have a right to expect that the law will be fair that the constitution will be colorblind as justice holland said at the turn of the century this is what we're talking about and this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for and in meeting it i ask the support of all of our citizens thank you very much this is roger mudd in new york continuing our special coverage of today's historic events in tuscaloosa alabama and in washington d.c you have just heard the president of the united states make an address that has been urged upon him over the past month by the negro leadership in america and by the liberal leadership in america the president described the rising negro militancy constituting a moral crisis in the united states he said this rising tide of discontent threatens the public safety of the united states he says the fires of frustration and discontent are burning in every city in america and he said that he will ask the congress to act to legislate next week he says legislation must be forthcoming at this session and unless congress acts the remedy he said for the negroes will be found in the streets he said that he will ask congress to enact a law prohibiting discrimination in public facilities in hotels restaurants and retail stores he will ask the federal government to have power to initiate suits for school desegregation and will ask for greater protection on the right to vote as part of our continuing coverage we want to call in cbs news correspondent dan rather and cbs newsman nelson benton in tuscaloosa who are standing by for a description of today's events the situation here in tuscaloosa and on the campus of the university of alabama at the moment is as it has been most of the day and that is extremely quiet cbs newsman nelson button is just back from a tour of the campus and in particular the dormitory areas where the two negro students are housed nelson there's nothing to indicate that there is anything brewing at all on campuses there that's right dan the security very definitely in effect jimmy hood is at palmer hall and that oedipus on the campus is hinged off from the rest of the campus by state patrolmen only students who live there are going through the same situation exists at mary burke hall a new dormitory where vivian malone is staying but so far there's no cheering there are a few soldiers lulling around on the campus going about just being there but that's just about what it is don't you agree we'd be amiss if we didn't point out that it has been very very quiet on campus and in tuscaloosa for the last week really although these security measures have been in effect and are still in effect that certainly the way the students behaved themselves today was a credit to the university and the same thing can be said to the city of tuscaloosa i haven't seen even a hint of an incident of any kind i think that must be said the strongest emotion that you could see out there today displayed by a student was perhaps curiosity and one point that needs to be made is that there was some question before today whether governor george wallace would leave the alabama state troopers on campus and or in the city of tuscaloosa once federal forces were brought in to make sure that the negroes got on campus you'll recall at the university of mississippi crisis last fall when james meredith was enrolled there that the mississippi state troopers were withdrawn from the campus just after federal authorities moved on that's the reason there was some question about whether the alabama state futures would stay on governor wallace has ordered them to stay on as he put it just as long as if they are necessary to maintain peace and order and the security of the campus and the city of tuscaloosa is now as it has been for the past week completely in the hands of the alabama law enforcement officers this is dan rather with nelson betten in tuscaloosa alabama among the strongest southern voices for moderation and obedience to the law is the atlanta georgia constitution and the voice behind that paper is the constitution's editor ralph mcgill he's waiting in washington now with charles von friend to discuss today's events in tuscaloosa go ahead chuck mr mcgill as a moderate in the south when it comes to civil rights you've also been described as the conscience of the south by a good many people what were your thoughts this morning when a defiant governor stood in the doorway of the university of alabama well i was ashamed i understand that a circle had been printed painted for the governor he stood in this small painted circle i thought this was symbolic there now left two governors who stand in these small circles governor barnett of mississippi governor wallace of alabama these circles have diminished they're quite small now seem to me as a southerner who has written and watched the southern political scene for almost half a century now that this was a my go governor wallace revealed a typical bit of demagogic fakery which has been current in the southern political scene for a long time he said that he was a sovereign state this is not true he said he was acting under constitutional legality guaranteed by the 10th amendment this is not true he said the federal government was interfering with public education this is not true the sixth article of the constitution of the united states adopted in 1789 clearly spells this out i think every citizen might read this section two and three of article six this governor governor barnett and all others have taken an oath to uphold the constitution of the united states this oath in article six of the constitution adopted in 1789 does away with the old sovereign states which existed in the confederation which preceded the united states there are no such rights guaranteed in the 10th amendment they are spelled out in article 6 and they say that every legislature every governor every judicial officer every state officer of any kind is bound by their oath to support the constitution these are the rights spelled out there is no sovereign state we are a federal union and the constitution has primacy because the constitution had to be brought into being by hamilton and others because the confederation had fallen in a near war so this is a bit of fakery which southerners have indulged in for years it sounds good in oratory mr mcgill was alabama the key and now that uh the governor there has apparently failed in his efforts to keep his school segregated do you expect the rest of the south to also fall on this issue well i would think that it will take in alabama because of the attitude of the governor because of the attitude of governor barnett who despite their disclaimers of violence and i think governor wallace certainly must be given some credit for not encouraging it as was done in alabama in mississippi but i think that the possibilities of violence are not removed so long as the governor deceives his people by saying he's acting constitutionally and encourages them to believe that they are being put upon the federal government is not interfering with education at alabama the alabama the university had accepted these two students the federal government is not saying what they should teach or what they shall pay the teacher or what they shall do all it has done is saying they can't just discriminate against a student a qualified student now why does the governor say that they're interfering with education this isn't true nor is any of the others there's an old time but a fakery which demagogue politics has seen so long in the south mr mcgill in recent weeks and months we've suddenly been aware of a uh of a new militancy you might say on the part of negroes in the south how is this going to affect their cause will it slow down their uh bid for immigration or might it speed it up well certainly it has some frightening aspects if we look ahead and if the congress does not act as the president requested but i don't think this is a new militancy we have had the freedom riders we've had to sit in groups and we've had the student boycotts for three years now but certainly i'm sure that the the terrific violences and the dogs loosed on people and the fire hoses in birmingham that this has made a expanded this this uh policy of seeking to have full rights it's greatly expanded but i wouldn't say it's new do you see any hopeful or encouraging signs in the south these days is it all just as bad as we've been seeing and hearing in most weeks no no it isn't there are many signs i think the southern story really is one of getting ahead well there are many small things we haven't time but at the university of georgia a fine young negro senior was elected to phi beta kappa by an all-white group uh three ministers in mississippi last sunday announced they were going to ask to be moved they could no longer endure this agony of having negro worshipers turned away the clemson college could have given governor wallace an example a young negro entered there in january without any governor interfering the students have accepted him in in many other states all of the other states really there's a great deal of progress and this is a shameful thing for governor wallace mile relatively as he was compared to the governor barnett to deceive his own people this constitutional bunk and to say that the university is being interfered with in the conduct of its education mr mcgill as you pointed out you've spent almost a half century in the south reporting on its ways especially in so far as the civil rights story goes you've been sitting here this evening with me watching the president's speech on television what effect do you think his nationwide address will have on the people in the south well i can't help but believe it will have a good effect on everyone except the real extremist diehards after all this thing as the president said it's pretty simple do we mean to say that in this in the southern part of the united states a negro citizen can't go in a restaurant that he can't have a hotel room that he can't go to a movie he can't send his children to school surely we don't really mean to say this and yet here we have a governor in inspiring a lot of people to think that they do have a right to do this and that this is the american way i think the president's speech will have a good influence on every thoughtful person some civil rights advocates have been uh complaining recently that there hasn't been enough leadership on the part of the federal government is this uh argument valid do you think i don't think so and i think this was brought out in what we've seen today there is this federal and state government and i thought it was a little shabby for the governor to speak of the central government it's his government uh to speak of it as for some foreign government uh there is this dichotomy there is there are some states rights not to discriminate but there are states there are these two powers and so i think that the president has been wise to try to work it out and ask it to be done locally this is where it should be done but based on the recent past and the present experiences is it possible mr mcgill to look ahead to the future and come up with a timetable that might indicate when there will be an end to segregation in the south as a two three five years not a timetable like one for a railroad an airplane but i would say this thing has worked out now largely in an urban complex and in the state universities i would say five years we ought to be well along in our big urban centers with here and there in rural areas some disaffection or some uh resistance but in the main we've got it made thank you very much mr mcgill for being with us now back to roger mudd in new york that was the editor of the atlanta constitution ralph mcgill in a conversation with cbs news washington correspondent charles von friend few of america's problems have the personal emotional impact on the individual citizen that the race conflict does it may be that the detachment of a foreign view is needed to help us see clearly and the foreigner who has concerned himself most intimately with america's racial problem is sweden's gunner mirdahl his book american dilemma has become an unexpected classic on the subject here is paul nevin interviewing gunner mirdahl do you think there's any uh likelihood that negro leadership will pass from moderates to extremists i don't think so because it's on the one hand it's natural that a racial group like the negroes who feel severely discriminated against and feel that they have not got that right on the one hand it's natural but then you will have movements of desperation you have had it in old times you had the garbage movement you had a fear here that should do a communist that's you know there are very few communist negroes at any time and then now you have these muslims and you have other radical the the main body of negro leaders and ordinary negroes however see that great hope of being accepted as ordinary americans well you're rather optimistic then you feel the struggle is going on much as it has without much more violence but well you might have more violence as the movement is accelerating here again i would like to in the last chapter i have a quotation from a friend of mine uh whom i call at that time a an eminent and conservative negro sociologist the man i referred to as the late charles s johnson was the first negro president of fisk university and he one evening said to me you know gunner i'm not afraid of race rides and even lynching here and i would more scared if nothing was happening because then things might settle down when unfortunate things might even spur the movement create the consciousness among americans what's happening i think for instance if you want me to give a straight example and i'm speaking straight to you i'm a customer to speak i'm a square head and i'm i'm very much at home in america that when you had the pictures which i saw the last time when i visited america uh the dogs biting negro kids that awakened much good conscience in in white america all over the country some observers say that today in tuscaloosa was the last great confrontation between state and federal power that now that some degree of integration has come to every state there can be no further occasions for anyone to stand in the door but in reality this is an argument that was settled one hundred years ago at appomattox then as now it was probably inevitable that in the matter of the united states versus the governor of alabama the united states would prevail this is roger mutt in new york good night the program regularly scheduled at this time was not broadcast in order to bring you a special address by the president of the united states and this cbs news special report this is the cbs television network [Music] you

Channel: JFK Library

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Keywords: John, F., Kennedy, Presidential, Library, and, Musuem, civil, rights, integration, black, community, university, of, alabama, school, college, june, 11, speech, address

Id: 58O2De-iPOk

Length: 30min 1sec (1801 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2020