page_title: Report to the American People on Civil Rights
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: Report to the American People on Civil Rights / Aftermath / Reception
caption_attribution_description: English: Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy speaking to a crowd of African Americans and whites through a megaphone outside the Justice Department; sign for Congress of Racial Equality is prominently displayed. Français&#160;: Robert Francis Kennedy, alors ministre de la Justice (Attorney General), parlant à une assemblée de noirs américains et d'américains blancs à l'aide d'un mégaphone devant le ministère de la justice. Une pancarte pour le Congress of Racial Equality est visible. Gaeilge: Griangraf an tArd-Aighne Robert F. Kennedy ag caint trí meigeafón le slua Afraice- Meiriceánaigh agus daoine bánach lasmuigh den Roinn Dlí; tá plaiceard an "Congress Of Racial Equality" (Comhdháil Na Comhionannas Ciníoch nó CORE) ag taispeáint go feiceálach.
context_page_description: The Report to the American People on Civil Rights was 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.
  Kennedy was initially cautious in his support of civil rights and desegregation in the United States. Concerned that dramatic actions would alienate legislators in the segregated southern United States, he limited his activities on the issue and confined his justifying rhetoric to legal arguments. As his term continued, African Americans became increasingly impatient with their lack of social progress and racial tensions escalated.
context_section_description: Martin Luther King Jr. watched the address with Walter E. Fauntroy in Atlanta. When it was over, he jumped up and declared, "Walter, can you believe that white man not only stepped up to the plate, he hit it over the fence!" He then sent a telegram to the White House: "I have just listened to your speech to the nation. It was one of the most eloquent[,] profound, and unequivocal pleas for justice and freedom of all men ever made by any President. You spoke passionately for moral issues involved in the integration struggle." King had been working with other black civil rights leaders to organize a "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom" in August. They decided to reorient the focus of the demonstration to put pressure on Congress—and not Kennedy's administration—to take action. The executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Roy Wilkins, stated that while Kennedy had done well in explaining the moral issue of discrimination, he had failed to address inequality in the workplace adequately. Wilkins later said, however, "This was the message I had waited to hear from him. I fell asleep that night feeling new confidence. For the first time in years, real change seemed to be at hand." Writer James Baldwin and other activists who had met with the Attorney General in May to encourage the Kennedy administration to be more supportive of civil rights received the address positively. Jackie Robinson, a prominent black Republican and skeptic of Kennedy, announced that he would vote to re-elect the President in 1964. The speech also moved Mildred Loving, a black woman married to a white man, to write Robert Kennedy to ask if the administration's legislative proposals would include protection for interracial couples. The Attorney General suggested for her to seek help from the American Civil Liberties Union, the organization that later brought the legal challenge to Virginia's anti-miscegenation law on Loving's behalf before the Supreme Court in the landmark 1967 case Loving v. Virginia. Other civil rights activists feared that Kennedy's speech was delivered too late to curb the increasing violence in their movement.
  The morning after the broadcast, a panel, moderated by Richard Heffner, discussed the content of the address on the Metromedia program The American Experience. Participants in the televised debate included Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X, New York editor of Ebony Allan Morrison, Congress of Racial Equality executive director James Farmer, and Southern Christian Leadership Conference executive director Wyatt Tee Walker. Several observers noted the historical significance of the speech; The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky wrote that it would "surely rank as one of the landmark public documents," and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted, "President Kennedy's moving appeal to the conscience of America should be regarded as one of the major achievements of the civil rights struggle." The New York Times published an editorial, which argued that while the President had initially "moved too slowly and with little evidence of deep moral commitment" in regards to civil rights, he "now demonstrate[d] a genuine sense of urgency about eradicating racial discrimination from our national life." The Nation remarked that Kennedy had "let two [genies] out of their respective bottles on successive days" (referencing the American University speech of June 10). A Newsweek writer described his actions as the "politics of courage." Favorable editorials were printed in The New Yorker, The New Republic, and Time. Other publications expressed timid approval of the address. The Wall Street Journal criticized Kennedy's approach, objecting to his harsh language that gave the impression that "90 percent of the American people are engaged in a bitter and unremitting oppression of the other 10 percent." It warned that the speech could tarnish the United States' image abroad, asking, "What is anyone to think when the nation's highest voice speaks of the conditions of Negroes as little more than sl
caption: Robert Kennedy speaking to civil rights demonstrators in front of the Justice Department on June 14
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