the brink of racial warfare, King warned Kennedy that ‘the Negro’s endurance
may be at the breaking point.’
Hours after Wallace buckled in Tuscaloosa, Kennedy finally put the weight
of his presidency behind the civil rights movement. Speaking on national
television with a rarely seen passion, he characterized segregation as ‘a moral
crisis’ that required federal remedy [Doc. 9, p. 146]. Within days, Kennedy
proposed the most comprehensive civil rights bill in American history. The
measure guaranteed voting rights and required equal access to public accom-
modations, schools, and employment. Local agencies that persisted in dis-
crimination would lose federal funds. The bill was far from ideal because it
was crafted to attract moderate support across party lines. Individuals had to
initiate lawsuits against Jim Crow public accommodations before the Justice
department could litigate. Additionally, the bill excluded state and local elec-
tions from voting rights guarantees, targeted only southern schools that dragged
their feet on desegregation, and ignored job discrimination and police bru-
tality altogether. Ever cautious, Kennedy wanted to improve race relations
‘without getting us too far out front.’ Nonetheless, in breaking with southern
Democrats, he staked the country’s future, and his own, on civil rights. It
amounted to a tectonic shift in American politics.86 THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT