Here is the video clip of JFK's
Civil Rights address. It is split into two parts. Scroll
down for the full transcript.
It follows the full text transcript of
John F. Kennedy's Radio and Television Report to
the American People on Civil Rights, also called his Civil
Rights Address, broadcast from the White House, Washington D.C. - June 11, 1963.
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
Viet-Nam 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 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 Nation 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 as
much chance of completing college, one-third as
much chance of becoming a professional man,
twice as much chance of becoming unemployed,
about one-seventh as much chance of earning
$10,000 a year, a life expectancy which is 7
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 will 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 counsels of
patience and delay?
One hundred 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 freed from social and economic
oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes
and all its boasts, 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 ghettoes, no
master race except with respect to Negroes?
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 or 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. Redress 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 as a people. It cannot be met by repressive
police action. It cannot be left to increased
demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be
quieted by token moves or talk. It is 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 fact 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 has 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 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 in 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 have recently met with scores of business
leaders urging them to take voluntary action to
end this discrimination and I have been
encouraged by their response, and in the last 2
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 am also asking the 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 the pace is
very slow.
Too many Negro children entering segregated
grade schools at the time of the Supreme Court's
decision 9 years ago will enter segregated high
schools this fall, having suffered a loss which
can never be restored. The lack of an adequate
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 action or who may be subject to
harassment.
Other features will also be 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 have been working
in their communities to make life better for
all. They are acting not out of a sense of legal
duty but out of a 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 in 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 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.
It 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 10 percent of the population
that you can't have that right; that your
children cannot have the chance to develop
whatever talents they have; that the only way
that they are going to get their rights is to go
into the streets and demonstrate. I think we owe
them and we owe ourselves a better country than
that.
Therefore, I am asking for your help in making
it easier for us to move ahead and to 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 talents.
As I have said before, not every child has an
equal talent or an equal ability or an equal
motivation, but they should have an 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
color blind, as Justice Harlan said at the turn
of the century.
This is what we are 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 our citizens.
Also called the
Persian Wars, the Greco-Persian Wars were
fought for almost half a century from 492 BC -
449 BC. Greece won against enormous odds. Here
is more:
