it. while the, quote, battle of ft. stevens was going on july 11th and 12th, abraham lincoln, not that far away, came out to the fort and he got up to the parapit to look out to see where the troops were. and there were actually some sharpshooters who took shots at him. they did not hit him. one of the -- the story is and i often wonder if this is true. oliver wendel homes, who became famous later, was said to have said, get down you fool. meaning get down before you get shot. i doubt that happened, but there are people that said that is what oliver wendell holmes has said.

abraham lincoln here standing on the parapit looking out to see where the enemy troops actually were. >> you can watch this and other american artifacts programs anytime by visiting our web site c-span.org. and watch american artifacts every sunday here on c-span 3. the john f. kennedy presidential library commenced a library. in this discussion, this panel is discussing the president's actions on civil rights. this program is just over one hour. >> so, if we could have your attention. we'll now go to our next panel on the presidencies of john f. kennedy and lyndon johnson.

>> all right. so now it is afternoon. good afternoon. and remembering that we're honoring two presidents. george washington and abraham lincoln. here is something from abraham lincoln that seems fit this afternoon. the probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the cause we believe to be just. that seems to be very appropriate for our conversation of civil rights in the united states. we enter the conversation and the first panel looking at the double v victory and the world war ii and the cold war and the responsibility of aernie green and little rock nine. the movement by truman and eisenhower, although not supporters of social equality, do something to move the country forward with regard to civil rights. now we come to the terms of john

f. kennedy and lyndon johnson. typically regarded by people who think of the modern civil rights movement as two presidents that were very much associated with civil rights. we think we know those stories. the question on the program is to ask how legislation was moved forward? what were the forces that inspired the legislative process by these two presidents to advance actual civil rights legislation? we certainly have the panel to do that. so, let's start with -- because i like a little context -- after we leave eisenhower and now it is john f. kennedy's time, what was happening in the country in terms of the naacp, in terms of what lawyers were doing, kenneth

mack, and where the black community was and civil rights? little rock nine was considered a source. kenneth mack, i'll start with you. >> okay. what was going on with the country. several things. first the brown decision had been decided. it has been unevenly enforced. the little rock crisis. really nobody knew whether or when or how school desegregation would happen in the south. the justice department was trying to force existing civil rights laws, but there were holes in the existing civil rights laws. it was mentioned earlier that under eisenhower's watch, the civil rights act was enacted. it gave the justice department additional powers to enforce

civil rights. still very, very significant con strands on what the justice department can do. the naacp is caught up with the brown v. board of education. then there is martin luther king. he was catapulted in 1965. king is also looking in 1960 and '61 for ways to push the movement forward. desegregation of the military, brown v. board of education, president kennedy and robert kennedy were racial liberals. they were comfortable with social equality. they were comfortable around african-americans. which distinguished them from most of the predecessors in the office of the presidency, but

still nobody knew what the next step was. in fact, the next steps were driven by things and people who were outside of the office of the president of the united states, outside of the executive branch. the next steps were driven by african-americans and whites in the south. >> so john f. kennedy first had to get the presidency. part of his exceeding to the presidency, he had to deal with the issues of civil rights. some of this that was going on that kenneth mack has described after eisenhower's presidency. how did he do that and how did he view civil rights as a candidate before he got into the chair as president? >> one day, shortly after i was hired by kennedy, i had been

campaigning for him on foreign policy grounds. although he had supported the jury trial amendment in 1957 of the first civil rights act since reconstruction. he was in trouble, but i was ardently for kennedy on foreign policy grounds. he picked me up on a corner in georgetown. he knew i had joined the staff by then and hadn't known anything about civil rights background i had had with dr. king with civil disobedience. he said now in ten minutes, tick off the things that i ought to do if i'm president to clean up the damn civil rights mess. i had my moment. i had my ten minutes. >> what did you say? >> among other things, i said,

with one stroke of a pen, you can sign the executive order eliminating discrimination in federally-assisted housing that the civil rights commission had recommended and was sitting on eisenhower's desk for six months. with one stroke of a pen. he said i like that. we talked about the problem of the southern legislator's filibustering. he jumped at the idea of executive action. i had five or six other points. a few days later, he called me in and said, sergeant shriver convinced us of the civil rights section that would have black and white leaders and hispanic leaders and all the black

leaders that we could get to actually join the campaign. we've learned about your ties in those years. would you go down and work with sergeant shriver, who i had already gotten to know separately and knew he was somebody i enjoyed more than anything for the next ten years i had in my life. night and day we were in the civil rights section. a key part of it was the democratic platform, which was the most far-reaching political civil rights platform that any party had ever had even with the republicans and abolitionists blooming. it was an extraordinary one that went further than they wanted because -- because chester bowles was the chairman of the democratic platform committee. he signed us on civil rights to

have a maximum platform and a minimum that we would fight for because he knew he would have to compromise with the southerners and he wanted to have the maximum. we had good ones. minimum and maximum. that morning, robert kennedy got up to a chair in the caucus of the democratic leaders on the floor and said today's the day for the platform. the civil rights platform is strong and we want the kennedy delegates, every one of them, to go all the way with bowles' platform. i reported to bowles that's the command. he said oh, my god, i don't know what will happen. the southerners did not balk. the whole maximum got adopted somewhat by accident, which kennedy avowed and campaigned on a number of times and then came

the call as king and then in due course, i became an assistant to the president for civil rights having first urged lewis martin. they wanted in the democratic national committee. twice on the edge of signing the executive order on housing, the southern legislators came to him and said, first, if you sign that we will not support your housing and your economic plan. then second time he delayed it. they came and said, we're all up for election and we're going to lose the south or a lot of us, if you sign it. twice when i was booked to go on explaining the executive order on martin gronsky's radio show,

he canceled at the last minute. the pen started flowing from the civil rights movement decided to send one stroke of a pen. allegedly when the pens came in, the first huge bundle, he said send them over to wofford. got me into that. on executive action, he formed a sub cabinet group on civil rights, which he asked me to chair, and which every cabinet department had to have a member of the sub cabinet committee on civil rights. we met regularly to find out and to move and to support each other in how much each department could do. kennedy launched it and supported it and then the freedom riders rode. >> so you would say he was good

on civil rights? >> i'm just giving you a beginning story. >> i was trying to get you to characterize it. >> i came in due course to realize that what many thought was weakness or unreadiness. >> gradualism. >> gradualism, et cetera. al sharpton interview on "chris matthews" said your book convinced me i was wrong. he was just a gradualist and did not have commitment to civil rights. i recommend his book because just looking at it cleanly now from the democratic platform to the call of mrs. king and the executive actions that were taken and two weeks after the worst violence of the freedom riders and the order to the

interstate commerce commission was to design regulations that will end segregation and housing which is the happy end of the story going through his submission of the civil rights bill and great speech. >> pretty good. okay. let's let it sit there for a second. i'll go over to roger. >> you're the moderator. >> i'm going over to roger for a second to talk about it. if you could pull together the middle of the thread. kenneth is talking about what's happening. there is an ongoing -- i would say persistent thought that kennedy came late to civil rights. despite what he may have said on the campaign trail and despite what harris wofford said about setting up the civil rights section. i wonder if you could pull that middle together for us and give us your assessment of where he was and did you see him as a

gradualist? >> are you asking me? >> yes, you. >> if i saw the president as a -- you couldn't be black and alive after ernie and his school mates and other black youngsters in the south on freedom rides and they are getting their heads whipped because they want a decent education. and the president is nominating judges who you wouldn't jump over the moon to put on the bench if you were me.

personally, i thought -- i worked for kennedy in the campaign and i never supported a republican. i'm a democrat all the way. when i got to washington, there was a sense that i had that many of the white guys who were in charge of running the civil rights -- present company excluded -- really weren't deeply in it and how deep and nasty and hard and mean the racism in this country still was. pretty words weren't going to

fix it. it made it impossible for me to first of all continue as a lawyer who was going to make some money, which it turns out i didn't do to my wife's unhappy dismay. but you couldn't live in this society, this heated racial society, and not get in it. and get in it with force and effort. and i thought -- i thought that the candidates were nice people for being so rich [ laughter ] but that they didn't really

understand the depth the americanism and awfulness of america's racial problems. there wasn't a quick thing to do. oh, get mack. mack bundy can come in and say something clever and we can figure out how to do this. there was no way to do it, but for people to get into the trough and go and use years and years all of their lives to change it. and i would say that though -- and you have to be honest about these things. this is not going to -- the next sentence is not going to be a very nice one, but it was really

hard to get into -- try to get into civil rights and make it better and get the administration to do more when you got the sense that you were moving around in several conglomerations of fairly arrogant white guys. who, many of them, who never had anything to do with race at all until they got into the thing and started working. now, harris was -- is -- he is my exculpation. he was one of the white guys that people could go to early on

in a president's term. he was the good guy, but there were a lot of guys who just wanted to be near the top. and guys who issues at the top of the foreign aid program. and then it always turned to race. and then

president saying that for? that man's a rat? he's just terrible. he's going to make feeling was

that harshly. but it was feeling that the administration was feeling its way and that the attorney general, who was in charge of this stuff, was being the tough guy and that the administration was full of tough guys. the administration asked was not examined for a job. >> let me ask this question before i get charlene into the conversati conversation. you said something about the appointment of federal judges. whereas, an eisenhower worked very carefully to make certain that the judges he put in place were pro civil rights. kennedy did not do that.

as astop to those southerners that you speak of. he appointed southerners as judges. the impact of that, kenneth mack , if you would. >> harold cox was proposed to the eisenhower justice department as a judicial appointment and herbert brown left when he heard harold cox's name. when kennedy comes in, cox gets appointed. cox was probably the worst of the lot, but there were many like him. kennedy's problem was the democratic party still was, in part, the party of the south. eisenhower did not have that problem. kennedy had a number of southern senators and he had to decide whether he was going to do something that will make them

unhappy because they can make his life unhappy also by blocking his legislation, by the administration, by depriving programs of money. it is one of many instances where it requires a little bit of confrontation. and the president and the attorney general shied away from that confrontation and appointed a number of segregationist judges in the south. this was very, very important. one thing the people don't understand that -- we understand the role of little rock. the role of judicial was key in the civil rights movement. if they get arrested, will they get out of jail? will there be an injunction? states want to join the protest.

will the federal government act? as far as the boycott, what people don't know, in fact, the federal judicial helped save the bus boycott. they filed the lawsuit and got it in front of the federal judicia judiciary. the supreme court declared that unconstitutional. federal judges were going to be key in whether or not the movement was going to succeed or fail in the south. the kennedy administration put a number of federal judges in who issued rulings that were contrary to law. harold cox would speak in racial epithets from the bench. you know, would refer to african-americans as "monkeys" from the bench. this was someone who kennedy put in. in fact, the judges who the kennedys liked, were, of course,

the eisenhowers on the fifth circuit. when the district court judges ruled against them, they had to go to the eisenhower judges in the fifth circuit to get the constitutional rights for the african-americans in the south. >> can i continue this? on this road. when you are sitting inside the government and you are seeing that and it's your party and your president, you're in a terrible mess. and so you have to do what you have to do. and it is to point out to the president of the united states that he wasn't -- they weren't responding to ernie green and

his colleagues. you look at the picture of elizabeth eckford and the woman screaming with her face in rage. again, you have to say, come on, government that i work for. do something. i would say it in words and then i decided -- ralph would say right it, roger. you know this stuff. i don't know this stuff. you write it. i'm writing it. i'm going to break my career. break my career. write. and then, i finally said to myself, what you need to do. i said to myself, what are you? a man or a bunch of -- you can't

ask yourself that question if you're not ready to give the right answer. and i did give the right answer and it came back from bob kennedy like a rocket like a thing you knock down tanks with. it was really -- it was really tough. he's green. he doesn't know what he's talking about. he'll certainly never get an appointment in this department as long as i'm attorney general. >> let me get charlene into the conversation. >> wait. >> okay. okay. >> i just want to say that that changed some stuff. and all i'm trying to say is

that what the people on the street were doing and their demands and their pressure and their enlightening. in particular the young people. and you say you've got to do it. you have to change things in response to people. i'll be quiet. >> okay. [ applause ] >> so we're talking about the one-two conversation of streets versus court. you have told us what is happening legislatively. harris wofford has told us the same kind of thing. let me explain who elizabeth eckford is. she was one of the students who was going to be part of the desegregation of central high school along with ernie green and the rest. she is captured in the i