Re: [Marxism] JFK and the civil rights movement

[Jim Farmelant <farmelantj@xxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 02 Jul 2006 16:47:33 -0400 Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Washington Post, Sunday, July 2, 2006; BW02
> A new book argues that JFK sat on the sidelines in the fight for
> civil rights.

Doesn't sound like anything very new here, but I
suppose each new generation needs to be reminded
of the Kennedy Administration's real record in regards
to the civil rights movement, given the mythologization
of Camelot that kids are fed with in the public schools.

Although Jack Kennedy
on occasion, when it suited him, would portray himself
as a sympathizer of MLK, in reality, he regarded
the civil rights movement,  as being at most a terrible
nuisance, that threatened to derail the support that
he was trying to cultivate among Southern Democrats.
At his best, Kennedy wished that the civil rights movement
would go away. While at his worst, he collaborated with
the efforts of J. Edgar Hoover to sabotage and destroy
the movement. We shouldn't need reminding that
it was Bobby Kennedy, who as attorney general
authorized the wiretapping of MLK and his associates.
And the Kennedy brothers participated in the red baiting
of the movement.

> By Jonathan Yardley
>
> THE BYSTANDER
> John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality
> By Nick Bryant
> Basic. 545 pp. $29.95
>


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