[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.”58 Kennedy’spublic rhetoric throughout most of his tenure as president was consistent withj o h n f.k e n n e d y a n d t h e m o r a l c r i s i s o f 1 9 6 3■119this philosophy.His speeches emphasized a moral obligation to promote free-dom internationally, attempting to appeal to Americans’ sense of “ManifestDestiny.” And in his public messages, domestic civil rights issues were oftensubordinated to Kennedy’s focus on foreign aVairs.I do not wish to take President Kennedy’s international politics to task here,nor to argue that civil rights was a strictly domestic issue.Clearly, civil rightswas an important international issue for the United States during the Cold War.Political scientist Mark Stern notes that the World War II victory over Nazism—an ideology centered around racism—focused attention on racism in the world’sleading democracy.Racial segregation and discrimination against AfricanAmericans was an embarrassment and a political liability for the nation in thepostwar years.The status of African Americans undercut the United States’moral claim to free world leadership.59That this inconsistency and embarrassment undermined American foreignpolicy was not lost on President Kennedy.In spite of Kennedy’s criticism ofhis predecessor’s approach to civil rights during the 1960 campaign, JFK sharedone vision with Dwight Eisenhower, that civil rights was a dominant issue inthe international political context.Like Ike, Kennedy discussed civil rights as aserious issue in the Cold War that could be used by the Soviet bloc to attackthe American social and political system and to propagandize on behalf ofCommunism.For example, in the 1961 State of the Union address, JFK claimed,“The denial of constitutional rights to some of our fellow Americans on ac-count of race.subjects us to the charge of world opinion that our democ-racy is not equal to the high promise of our heritage.”60 President Kennedy wasespecially concerned about civil rights at home, in part, because he was preach-ing the “freedom doctrine” to people of color—Latin Americans, Africans,Asians—many of whom were acutely aware of the United States’ racial prob-lems.Schlesinger suggests that since the distance between African Americansand Africans had narrowed during the 1950s and 1960s, the United States es-pecially was susceptible to criticism from African nations for its mistreatmentof African Americans at home.61 The formation of the American Negro Lead-ership Conference on Africa in 1962 revealed the increasing identiWcation be-tween blacks in America and Africa and showed that even moderate AfricanAmericans saw colonial issues in Africa as civil rights issues, just as many Afri-can leaders viewed African Americans’ civil rights as important to their rela-tionship with the United States.President Kennedy became aggravated when images of violence againstAfrican Americans damaged the nation’s image in the world community and120■The Modern Presidency and Civil Rightssometimes turned his frustrations on civil rights activists instead of southernracists.In 1961, Kennedy complained that the Freedom Rides damaged thenation’s image and hurt him on the eve of important meetings in Vienna withSoviet premier Nikita Khrushchev: he viewed the demonstrations only throughthe prism of his own political interests.62 The president and the attorney gen-eral asked publicly and privately for a “cooling oV” period in the riders’ pro-tests, hoping to avoid embarrassment during Cold War dealings.63 Theadministration’s particular deWnition of civil rights as an important Cold Warissue seemed to gain force in public discourse about the Freedom Rides.Dur-ing the demonstrations, for instance, a newspaper reporter queried civil rightsactivist Ralph Abernathy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference(SCLC): “Reverend Abernathy, President Kennedy is about to meet with Pre-mier Khrushchev.Aren’t you afraid of embarrassing him with these demon-strations?” Abernathy, resisting this interpretation of events, replied, “Man,we’ve been embarrassed all our lives.”64 Kennedy biographer Herbert Parmetargues that African American leaders were unhappy that the president did notintervene to attempt to prevent bloodshed.Parmet also claims, “Neither werethe activists happy that the President was then also contemplating the ramiW-cations of the violence upon his forthcoming meetings with De Gaulle,Khrushchev, and Macmillan.”65In 1962, during the desegregation of the University of Mississippi, Kennedyonce more worried about the international implications of racial violence,though this time he did not become cross with blacks.JFK did not want to befaulted for creating a second Little Rock situation, which would provide theSoviets with fuel for their propaganda machine.Sorensen claims, “The possi-bility of domestic violence [in Oxford, Mississippi] made him more anxiousthan usual.” However, Kennedy was preoccupied with crucial developmentsin the Cold War, especially events that ultimately led to the Cuban Missile cri-sis that October.Violence eventually broke out in Oxford, leaving two deadand hundreds wounded.The president addressed the nation on September 30,indicating that the problem would pass, at the same moment that events wereescalating.President Kennedy’s speech employed a “whole world is watching”appeal to attempt to persuade local obstructionists to desist and restore order;he informed the citizens of Mississippi that the “eyes of the nation and of allthe world are upon you and upon all of us.”66Civil rights was an international issue, but the way in which JFK’s rhetoricoften connected civil rights with international aVairs was largely ineVective.Kennedy’s argument that whites should end discriminatory practices at homej o h n f.k e n n e d y a n d t h e m o r a l c r i s i s o f 1 9 6 3■121because it made the nation look bad abroad did not have much rhetoricalforce with southern segregationists, who were much more interested in pre-serving their way of life (which they believed was moral) than in what for-eign countries thought about the United States.Furthermore, the president’srhetorical association of civil rights and the Cold War angered civil rightsadvocates.Kennedy’s rhetoric suggested that civil rights was not a moralissue important in its own right but rather that its importance was whollydependent upon its connection to international relations
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]