Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T17:19:48.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Calculating Visions: Civil Rights Legislation in the Kennedy and Johnson Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Mark Stern
Affiliation:
University of Central Florida
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The presidential years of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson are synonymous with the culmination of the Second Reconstruction. This study examines the civil rights legislative strategies of presidents Kennedy and Johnson as they dealt with what became the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 1993

References

Notes

1. Betty Glad, “The Idiosyncratic Presidency: Contingency and the Use of Case Studies and Synthetic Proofs in Scientific Analysis,” Presidential Address, Presidency Research Group, presented at the 1990 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco.

2. Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York, 1957), 28, 34–35.Google Scholar

3. Polsby, Nelson, Political Innovation in America (New Haven, 1984), 161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Walker, Jack, “A Critique of the Elitist Theory of Democracy,” American Political Science Review 60 (1966): 292.Google Scholar

5. Schattschneider, E. E., The Semi-Sovereign People (Hinsdale, III., 1975), 71.Google Scholar

6. Kingdon, John W., Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston, 1984), 34Google Scholar; Polsby, 165–74; Downs, Anthony, “Up and Down with Ecology: ‘The Issue Attention Cycle,’Public Interest 28 (1972): 3850.Google Scholar

7. Riker, William H., Liberalism Against Populism (San Francisco, 1982), 209.Google Scholar

8. Hyman, Herbert H. and Sheatsley, Paul B., “Attitudes Toward Segregation,” Scientific American 195 (1956): 35, 39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Erskine, Hazel Gaudet, “The Polls: Race Relations,” Public Opinion Quarterly 26 (1962): 137–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Weissberg, Robert, “The Democratic Party and the Conflict over Racial Policy,” Ginsberg, Benjamin and Stone, Alan, eds., Do Elections Matter? (Armonk, N.Y., 1991): 150–70.Google Scholar

10. Among the major works that contain analyses of John F. Kennedy and civil rights, the following are more positive about the Kennedy civil rights role: Bernstein, Irving, Promises Kept (New York, 1991)Google Scholar; Brauer, Carl M., John F. Kennedy and the Second Reconstruction (New York, 1977)Google Scholar; Sorensen, Theodore, Kennedy (New York, 1966)Google Scholar; Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., A Thousand Days (New York, 1965).Google Scholar The following tend to be more critical: Branch, Taylor, Parting the Waters (New York, 1988)Google Scholar; Fairclough, Adam, To Redeem the Soul of America (Athens, Ga., 1987)Google Scholar; Garrow, David J., Bearing the Cross (New York, 1986)Google Scholar; Lawson, Steven F., Black Ballots (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; Miroff, Bruce, Pragmatic Liberalism (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; Navasky, Victor S., Kennedy Justice (New York, 1977)Google Scholar; Stern, Mark, Calculating Visions (New Brunswick, N.J., 1992).Google Scholar

11. See Burk, Robert F., The Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights (Knoxville, Tenn., 1984)Google Scholar; Anderson, J. W., Eisenhower, Brownell, and the Congress (University, Ala., 1964)Google Scholar; Lawson, Steven F., Black Ballots (New York, 1976).Google Scholar

12. U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Report: Speeches, Remarks, Press Conferences, and Statements of Senator John F. Kennedy, 87th Cong., lst sess. (Washington, D.C., 1961), 69; Press Release, “From the Offices of Senator Joseph F. Clark (D.-Pa.) and Representative Emanuel Celler (D.-N.Y.),” 16 September 1960, Papers of Emanuel Celler, Box 272, Library of Congress. (Hereafter the Library of Congress is referred to as LC.)Google Scholar

13. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., to John F. Kennedy, 30 August 1960, Papers of Adlai Stevenson, Box 798, Princeton University Library.

14. Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted in: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., to John F. Kennedy, 14 November 1960, JFK, President's Office Files, Box 165, John F. Kennedy Library. (Hereafter the Kennedy library is referred to as JFKL.)

15. Sorensen, 382; Robert F. Kennedy, Oral history interview by John Bartlow Martin, 29 February 1964, JFKL, 44.

16. Hardeman, D. B. and Bacon, Donald C., Rayburn (Austin, Tex., 1987), 452.Google Scholar

17. King, Martin Luther, Jr., “Bold Design for a New South,” The Nation, 30 March 1963, 260Google Scholar; Marshall, Burke, Oral history interview by Hackman, Larry, 29 May 1964, JFKL, 146.Google Scholar

18. New York Times, 12 June 1963.

19. Marshall, Burke, Oral history interview, 14 June 1964, JFKL, 101Google Scholar; Schlei, Norbert A., Oral history interview of Stewart, John, 20–21 February 1964, JFKL, 44.Google Scholar

20. Sorensen, Kennedy, 494.

21. Viorst, Milton, Fire in the Streets (New York, 1983), 221–22; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 883.Google Scholar

22. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963 (Washington, D.C., 1964), 272. (Hereafter references to the Public Papers of the Presidents … will be noted as PPP, followed by the president's initials and the year.)Google Scholar

23. Sundquist, James L., Politics and Policy (Washington, D.C., 1968), 263.Google Scholar

24. Kennedy, Robert F., Oral history interview by Lewis, Anthony, 6 December 1963, JFKL, V3.Google Scholar

25. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 884–85.

26. Lester, Julius, Look Out, Whitey! Black Power's Gon' Get You Mama! (New York, 1968), 1213Google Scholar; Lewis, David Levering, King (Urbana, Ill., 1970), 219.Google Scholar

27. Marshall, Burke, Oral history interview with Lewis, Anthony, 22 December 1964, JFKL, 917–18.Google Scholar

28. New York Times, 29 August 1963.

29. August Meier, “Who Are the ‘True Believers’? A Tentative Typology of the Motivations of Civil Rights Activists (1965),” in Gusfield, Joseph R., ed., Protest, Reform, and Revolt (New York, 1970), 480–81.Google Scholar

30. PPP: JFK, 1963, 645; Transcript of “March on Washington … Report by Leaders,” 28 August 1963, White House Subject Files, Box 365, JFKL.

31. Audiotape log 108.2, White House Subject Files, Box 505, JFKL; Washington Post, 16 October 1963.

32. Arnold J. Aaronson to All Cooperating Organizations, 30 August 1963, Papers of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Organizations File, Box 4, Library of Congress.

33. Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., Interview by Mark Stern, 30 August 1988, transcript in possession of the author, 6.

34. David Cohen to Beryl Radin, 31 October 1963, Papers of the Americans for Democratic Action, Series V, No. 88, Microfilm Corporation of America; Robert W. Kastenmeier, Oral history interview by Ronald Grele, 25 October 1965, John F. Kennedy Library, 14–15. The most comprehensive analysis of the struggle over the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is: Whalen, Charles and Whalen, Barbara, The Longest Debate (Cabin John, Md., 1985).Google Scholar

35. This episode is fully described in Whalen and Whalen, The Longest Debate, 35–66.

36. Bayard Rustin to Martin Luther King, Jr., 5 November 1963, Papers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Box 20: 39, Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Social Change.

37. Blatnik, John A., to Democratic Study Group Members, 13 November 1963, Papers of the Democratic Study Group, Box 72, LC.Google Scholar

38. Valenti, Jack, Oral history interview by Mark Stern, 5 October 1990, transcript in possession of the author, 1; Whalen and Whalen, The Longest Debate, 63.Google Scholar

39. PPP: LBJ, 1963–1964, 9.

40. Kearns, Doris, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (New York, 1976), 199.Google Scholar

41. McPherson, Harry, Oral history interview with Mark Stern, 24 July 1989, transcript in possession of the author, 1.Google Scholar

42. President's Appointment File (Diary Backup), 11 February 1964, Box 4, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library; Nicholas deB Katzenbach, “Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights Revolution: A Panel Discussion,” in Firestone, Bernard and Vogt, Robert C., eds., Lyndon Johnson and the Uses of Power (New York, 1988), 179. (Hereafter the Johnson Library is referred to as LBJL.)Google Scholar

43. Rauh, Joseph L., Jr., “Notes on Meeting: President Johnson, Clarence Mitchell, and Joe Rauh,” 21 January 1964, Papers of Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., Box 26, LCGoogle Scholar; Rauh, Joseph L., Jr., Oral History interview by Paige Mulhollan, 8 August 1969, LBJL, 16Google Scholar; Rauh, Joseph L., Jr., Oral history interview by Stern, Mark, 28 March 1990, interview in possession of the author, 4.Google Scholar

44. See, for example, PPP: LBJ, 1964, 28, 35; Lyndon Baines Johnson to John M. Hannah, 21 January 1964, Johnson Papers, EX FG 629–1, Box 375, LBJL.

45. The major analysis of King's Selma strategy is by Garrow, David J., Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (New Haven, 1978).Google Scholar

46. Gallup, George, The Gallup Poll (New York, 1972), 3:1881, 1894, 1896, 1902; New York Times, 24 August, 6 October, 3 November 1964.Google Scholar

47. Cosman, Bernard, Five States for Goldwater (University, Ala., 1965)Google Scholar; Sundquist, James L., Dynamics of the Party System (Washington, D.C., 1983), 352–75Google Scholar; Carmines, Edward G. and Stimson, James A., Issue Evolution (Princeton, 1989), 188.Google Scholar

48. O'Brien, Larry, Memorandum to the President, 23 October 1964, White House Central Files, Office Files of Henry Wilson, Box 3, LBJL.Google Scholar

49. Moyers, Bill, Letter to Stern, Mark, 27 August 1985, copy in possession of the author.Google Scholar

50. O'Brien, Lawrence F., Interview by Stern, Mark, 19 July 1989, transcript in possession of the author, 11.Google Scholar

51. Martin, Louis to Bailey, John M., “Operation Dixie, 1964–1965,” 17 November 1964, Johnson Papers, Legislative Background, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Box 1, LBJL.Google Scholar

52. Reese, Matthew, Jr., “Voting Participation and Registration,” Confidential report, December 1964, Office Files of Fred Panzer, Box 500, LBJL.Google Scholar

53. United States Commission on Civil Rights, Report of United States Commission on Civil Rights (Washington, D.C., 1959).Google Scholar

54. Katzenbach, Nicholas deB to Johnson, Lyndon B., 28 December 1964, Justice Department Administrative History, Vol. 7, Part Xa, LBJL; Lee White to Bill Moyers, “Legislation to Facilitate Registration for Federal Elections,” 30 December 1964, White House Central Files, Office Files of Lee White, Box 3, LBJL.Google Scholar

55. PPP: LBJ, (965, 1:5; News Conference, “Background Basis from W.H. Officials,” with Reedy, George, Bundy, McGeorge, and Moyers, William, 4 January 1965, Johnson Papers, President, 1963–1969, Legislative Background, Voting Rights Act of 1064, Box 1, LBJL.Google Scholar

56. Raines, Howell, My Soul Is Rested (New York, 1983), 337.Google Scholar

57. Ramsey Clark, “Comment,” in Firestone and Vogt, eds., Lyndon Johnson and the Uses of Power, 174.

58. Harold Barefoot Sanders, Oral history interview by Joe B. Frantz, Tape no. 3, LBJL, 3.

59. Johnson, Lyndon B., The Vantage Point (New York, 1971); 163; PPP: LBJ, 1965, 274–81.Google Scholar

60. Congressional Record, 89th Cong., lst sess., 18 March 1965, 5228.

61. Russell, Richard B. to Crittenden, Zac, 5 August 1965, Richard B. Russell Papers, Political Series, VI:23, Richard B. Russell Library.Google Scholar

62. PPP: LBJ, 1968, 1354.

63. Wilkins, Roy and Mathews, Tom, Standing Fast (New York, 1984), 196.Google Scholar