The Report to the American People on Civil Rights was a speech on civil rights, delivered on radio and television by United States President John F. Kennedy from the Oval Office on June 11, 1963, in which he proposed legislation that would later become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Expressing civil rights as a moral issue, Kennedy moved past his previous appeals to legality and asserted that the pursuit of racial equality was a just cause. The address signified a shift in his administration's policy towards strong support of the civil rights movement and played a significant role in shaping his legacy as a proponent of civil rights.
Kennedy was initially cautious in his support of civil rights and desegregation in the United States. Concerned that dramatic actions would alienate legislators in the segregated southern United States, he limited his activities on the issue and confined his justifying rhetoric to legal arguments. As his term continued, African Americans became increasingly impatient with their lack of social progress and racial tensions escalated. The rising militancy of the civil rights movement troubled white Americans and the deteriorating situation reflected negatively on the United States abroad. Kennedy came to conclude that he had to offer stronger support for civil rights, including the enactment of new legislation that would ensure desegregation in the commercial sector.
On June 11, 1963, federal officials integrated the University of Alabama. Kennedy decided that it was an opportune moment to speak about civil rights, and instructed Ted Sorensen to draft a speech that he could deliver on television that evening. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and his deputy, Burke Marshall, assisted Sorensen, who finished shortly before President Kennedy was due to begin speaking at 8:00 PM.
Background From the onset of his term, President John F. Kennedy was relatively silent on the issue of African-American civil rights in the United States, preferring executive action to legislative solutions. He was cautious not to distance the South, marked by substantial segregation and racial discrimination, by infringing upon states' rights. He also wanted to avoid upsetting members of Congress, as he was already struggling to secure their support for most of his New Frontier domestic programs. However, Kennedy's position on civil rights had begun to evolve during the Freedom Rides of 1961, when African Americans traveled along segregated bus routes in the South. Though he dispatched federal marshals to guard against the racial violence of the events, he publicly stressed that his actions were rooted in legality and not morality; American citizens had a constitutional right to travel, and he was simply enforcing that right. Regardless, several activists encouraged the President to discuss the "moral issue" of civil rights in American society. According to aide Harris Wofford, Kennedy felt that he was the strongest supporter of civil rights who had ever held the presidency, and he was irritated by such appeals. Wofford advised him, "What [President Dwight D. Eisenhower] never did was to give clear moral expression to the issues involved. The only effective time for such moral leadership is during an occasion of moral crisis. This is the time when your words mean most. Negro leaders feel sorely the absence of any such statement."
Kennedy devoted a significant amount of his 1962 State of the Union Address to the topic of civil rights, but he confined his rhetoric to legal themes and conveyed that present legislation sufficed his administration's efforts to combat racial discrimination. In September, James Meredith, a black man, enrolled at the University of Mississippi. Although Kennedy used federal troops to guarantee Meredith's safety and attendance, he publicly downplayed the violence that had occurred and made no changes to his legislative agenda. Despite being pleased that the federal government had protected Meredith, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was reportedly "deeply disappointed" in the President. Following the failure of the Albany Movement later that year, many civil rights activists believed that Kennedy "was more concerned with quieting the civil rights movement down than removing the practices it opposed."
In 1963, an increasing number of white Americans, troubled by the rise of more militant black leaders like Malcolm X, feared that the civil rights movement would take a violent turn. The depiction of racial violence in the media also benefited the Soviet Union's Cold War propaganda and damaged the United States' image abroad, which greatly concerned Kennedy. He determined that appropriate legislation would enable the administration to pursue suits through the court system and get the problem "out of the streets" and away from international spectators. In February, after receiving a report from the Civil Rights Commission on racial discrimination, Kennedy sent a message to Congress calling for a civil rights bill on the 28th. In addition to the suggested economic and diplomatic benefits, he justified his legislation's measures to remove institutional racism because "above all, [racism] is wrong." This marked the first time that Kennedy discussed civil rights in expressly moral terms. Regardless, the proposal garnered a flat response. Civil rights leaders were disappointed in the bill as it focused mainly on voting rights, and critics believed a bolder proposal was needed to end discrimination for African Americans. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference concluded that the Kennedy administration would need to be forced to fully confront racial problems. To do so, the Conference organized a series of demonstrations in April in Birmingham, Alabama, viewed by activists as one of the most segregated cities in the United States, which was designed to create a crisis that would require the President's involvement. The violent crackdown against demonstrators that occurred in May disturbed Kennedy, but he refrained from directly intervening because he did not believe he had a legal basis to do so. The civil conflict attracted global attention, especially from African leaders who were scheduled to assemble for a conference in Addis Ababa.
After the bombing of King's house on May 12, Kennedy delivered a short radio and television address and, in keeping with his previous legal arguments, he promised that his administration would "do whatever must be done to preserve order, to protect the lives of its citizens, and to uphold the law of the land." Meanwhile, Liberal Republicans in Congress proposed legislation that would outlaw segregationist practices. Nelson Rockefeller, a possible contender in the 1964 presidential election, suggested that he would try to raise money to bail King out of a Birmingham jail (King had been arrested for protesting). With such potential rivals threatening to take the initiative on civil rights, Kennedy became convinced that legislative action on the matter was a "political and moral necessity." His brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, was compelled by the events in Birmingham to support a legislative solution, though most of his other advisers remained unconvinced. On May 22, the President told the press that law "is not a matter of choice" and that "as a result of recent developments" he was "considering whether any additional proposals [would] be made to Congress ... We hope to see if we can develop a legal remedy". Nine days later he resolved over the objection of some of his advisers to propose a new civil rights bill being crafted by the Department of Justice, though the details of the legislation had yet to be finalized.
Prelude On May 21, 1963, a federal district judge ruled that the University of Alabama had to allow two black students, James Hood and Vivian Malone, to be admitted for its summer courses, starting in June. Alabama Governor George Wallace was determined to make at least a public display of opposing the order.
As the ensuing standoff intensified, Kennedy debated with his staff over the value of giving a speech on the matter. He himself was unsure of the idea, and his senior advisers were opposed to it except his brother, who supported the proposition. In a telephone conversation with presidential speechwriter Ted Sorensen on June 3, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson insisted that civil rights leaders wanted "moral commitment, and that will do more to satisfy them than [legislation]. [Kennedy] should stick to the moral issue and he should do it without equivocation ... what the Negroes are really seeking is moral force." He also suggested that the President should appear on television with an interracial military honor guard and argue that if there was an equal expectation for military service in the United States, then United States citizens should be treated equally in their country. In anticipation that the President might go forward with a response, the Attorney General had directed his recently hired speechwriter, Richard Yates, to produce a draft. Yates began writing on the evening of June 9. Hours after giving his American University speech on the previous day, President Kennedy met with Sorensen, Kenneth O'Donnell, Larry O'Brien, and Robert Kennedy in the White House to discuss the issue. The latter said, "Well, we've got a draft which doesn't fit all these points, but it's something to work with, and there's some pretty good sentences and paragraphs." The President then concluded the meeting, saying, "It will help us get ready anyway, because we may want to do it tomorrow." Meanwhile, King participated in a television interview which was to be printed on the front page of The New York Times the following morning. Comparing Kennedy's civil rights policy to Eisenhower's, King said that the President had substituted "an inadequate approach for a miserable one" and admonished him to discuss the moral dimensions of United States' racial problems.
On June 11, Governor Wallace stood in the doorway of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama to prevent the black students from registering for classes. Shortly after noon, Kennedy, unsure of what Wallace would do, requested for the Big Three television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) to clear time to broadcast a statement at 8:00 p.m. White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger fulfilled the task, in the process alerting the two largest national wire services, the Associated Press and United Press International. Less than three hours after the standoff began, Wallace yielded to Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and National Guard General Henry V. Graham. Kennedy and his staff watched the situation resolve on television in the White House afterwards. Sorensen figured that with the confrontation over, no speech would be given. However, Kennedy thought that the moment was opportune to educate the public on civil rights and follow through with appropriate legislation. Turning his chair towards Sorensen, Kennedy said, "We better give that civil rights speech tonight." That was over the objection of O'Brien, who thought that a speech would galvanize southern opposition and stall Kennedy's legislative agenda. Deputy Attorney General Burke Marshall said of Robert Kennedy's influence on the decision, "He urged it, he felt it, he understood it, and he prevailed. I don't think there was anybody in the Cabinet—except the President himself—who felt that way on these issues, and the President got it from his brother." Historian Carl Brauer argued that the most important factor in Kennedy's choice was his own perception of his reputation and goal to be viewed as a decisive leader, which had been compromised by the events in Birmingham.