T6A: JFK's Domestic Policy #1-28

Election of 1960

The 44th presidential election. In a closely contested election, Democrat John F. Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican Party nominee. This was the first election in which all fifty states participated, and the last in which the District of Columbia did not. It was also the first election in which an incumbent president was ineligible to run for a third term due to the term limits established by the 22nd Amendment.

Lyndon B. Johnson

The Vice President during JFK’s presidency. His presence on JFK’s running ticket attracted the support of conservative Southern Democrats and helped lift Kennedy to a narrow victory over Republican candidate Richard M. Nixon. Became president after JFK’s assassination.

Robert F. Kennedy

JFK’s brother and America’s 64th attorney general. In this role, he continued to battle corruption in labor unions, as well as mobsters and organized crime. Supported the civil rights movement for African Americans. Acted as one of JFK’s closest political advisors in the White House and was involved in important foreign policy decisions, including the administration’s handling of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

New Frontier

Refers to the economic and social programs of the presidency of John F. Kennedy. The concept epitomized Kennedy's commitment to renewal and change. In a characteristic intellectual and political pastiche, Kennedy and his speechwriters built on President Theodore Roosevelt's "Square Deal," President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal," and President Harry S. Truman's "Fair Deal”.

Peace Corps

A volunteer program run by the United States government. Its official mission is to provide social and economic
development abroad through technical assistance, while promoting mutual understanding between Americans and
populations served. Volunteers are American citizens, typically with a college degree, who work abroad
for a period of two years after three months of training. Volunteers work with governments, schools, non-profit
organizations, non-government organizations, and entrepreneurs in education, business, information technology,
agriculture, and the environment.

Affirmative Action

The first implementation was began with Executive Order 10925, signed by JFK on March 6, 1961, required government contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." It established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (PCEEO), which was chaired by then Vice President Lyndon Johnson. Intended to give equal opportunities in the workforce to all U.S. citizens, not to give special treatment to those discriminated against.

Freedom Riders

Groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. They tried to use “whites -only” restrooms and lunch counters at bus stations in Alabama, South Carolina and other Southern states. The groups were confronted by arresting police officers—as well as horrific violence from white protestors— along their routes, but also drew international attention to their cause.

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

One of the leading activist organizations in the early years of the American civil rights movement. It initially embraced a pacifist, non-violent approach to fighting racial segregation, but by the late 1960s the group’s leadership had shifted its focus towards the political ideology of black nationalism and separatism.

Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

A civil-rights group formed to give younger black people more of a voice in the civil rights movement. Ella Baker encouraged those who formed this to look beyond integration to broader social change and to view King’s principle of nonviolence more as a political tactic than a way of life. The new group played a large part in the Freedom Rides aimed at desegregating buses and in the marches
organized by Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC.

24th Amendment

Prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll
tax or other types of tax.

Integrating Ole Miss

James Meredith, an African American man, attempted to enroll at an all -white university in 1962. Chaos soon broke out on the campus, with riots ending in two dead, hundreds wounded and many others arrested, after the Kennedy administration called out some 31,000 National Guardsmen and other federal forces to enforce order.

James Meredith

This man—with the help of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—filed a lawsuit against Ole Miss, alleging racial discrimination after he was repeatedly denied from the university. The case was eventually settled on appeal by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor in September 1962. The Kennedy administration sent federal marshals to escort him due to violence upon his arrival.

J. Edgar Hoover

As director of the FBI, he had rabid anti-Communist and anti-subversive views and used unconventional tactics to monitor related activity.

Birmingham

A movement was organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in this city in Alabama. The campaign of nonviolent direct action culminated in widely publicized confrontations between young black students and white civic authorities, and eventually led the municipal government to change the city's discrimination laws. Through the media, this drew the world's attention to racial segregation in the South and directly paved the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibited racial discrimination in hiring practices and public services throughout the United States.

“Letter from Birmingham Jail”

Written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King Jr. It defends the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism. It says that people have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws and to take direct action rather than waiting potentially forever for justice to come through the courts. Responding to being referred to as an "outsider," King writes, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere".

Equal Pay Act

A United States labor law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. It was signed into law on June 10, 1963, by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program.

George Wallace

One of the most controversial politicians in U.S. history, was elected governor of Alabama in 1962 under an ultra-segregationist platform. In his 1963 inaugural address, he promised his white followers: “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!”

Report to the American People on Civil Rights

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.

Medgar Evers

Volunteered for the U.S. Army and participated in the Normandy invasion. In 1952, he joined the NAACP and traveled through his home state encouraging poor African Americans to register to vote and recruiting them into the civil rights movement. He was instrumental in getting witnesses and evidence for the Emmitt Till murder case, which brought national attention to the plight of African Americans in the South. On June 12, 1963, he was killed. After a funeral in Jackson, he was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. President John F. Kennedy and many other leaders publicly condemned the killing. In 1964, the first t rial of chief suspect Byron De La Beckwith ended with a deadlock by an all -white jury, sparking numerous protests. When a second all-white jury also failed to reach a decision, De La Beckwith was set free.

March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom

A massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a century after emancipation. It was also the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s now-iconic “I Have A Dream” speech.

“I Have A Dream” Speech

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the African American civil rights movement reaches its high-water mark when Martin Luther King, Jr., speaks to about 250,000 people attending the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

On September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at this location in Birmingham, Alabama—a place with a predominantly black congregation that also served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed and many other people injured. Outrage over the incident and the violent clash between protesters and police that followed helped draw national attention to the hard-fought, often-dangerous struggle for civil rights for African Americans.

Yuri Gagarin

On April 12, 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, this Soviet cosmonaut became the first human being to travel into space. The triumph of the Soviet space program in putting the first man into space was a great blow to the United States, which had scheduled its first space flight for May 1961. To Soviet propagandists, the Soviet conquest of space was evidence of the supremacy of communism over capitalism.

JFK’s Space Challenge

"We choose to go to the Moon" is the famous tagline of a speech about the effort to reach the Moon delivered
by United States President John F. Kennedy to a large crowd gathered at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas on
September 12, 1962. The speech was intended to persuade the American people to support the Apollo program, the
national effort to land a man on the Moon.

JFK Assassination

Occurred while JFK was traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy. LBJ became president afterwards.

Lee Harvey Oswald

An American Marxist and former U.S. Marine who assassinated United States President John F. Kennedy on
November 22, 1963.

Jack Ruby

A Dallas, Texas nightclub owner. He fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, while Oswald was in police custody after being charged with assassinating United States President John F. Kennedy and murdering Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit about an hour later. A Dallas jury found him guilty of murdering Oswald, and he was sentenced to death. His conviction was later appealed, and he was granted a new trial.

Warren Commission

A week after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, his successor, Lyndon Johnson (1908-1973), established this to investigate Kennedy’s death. It concluded that alleged gunman Lee Harvey Oswald (1939-1963) had acted alone in assassinating JFK. Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report proved controversial and failed to silence conspiracy theories