On 2/16/21 10:01 AM, Michael Meeropol wrote:
I always thought that story was from EARLY in the Roosevelt
Administration and the issue was Social Security, the WPA, etc --- the
"progressive" legislation from the New Deal --- in which FDR told
people there "make me do it" --- having nothing to do with Randolph
who was as the article shows pressuring Roosevelt during the 1941 ---
(maybe the whole story is fake --- and certainly the demobilization by
Obama is well documented)
Another very interesting story along the same lines is from Taylor
Branch's magnum opus AMERICA IN THE KING YEARS (three volumes). In the
one documenting Kennedy being dragged kicking and screaming to support
a Civil Rights bill, Kennedy clearing is ripshit mad at King and the
Southern demonstrators for endangering his (Kennedy's) relationship
with the Southern racists --- Kennedy famously appointed an extreme
racist to the Federal Bench --
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/JFK.htm
Kennedy came into the White House with a goal to hire as many token
black faces as he could. This combined with New Deal social spending
would keep blackAmericamollified. Kennedy's only true civil rights
initiative was a voter-registration campaign modeled after the modest
efforts of the Eisenhower administration's final six months in office.
He hoped that the largely judicial axis of such an initiative would help
to short-circuit the more confrontational boycotts and sit-ins being
pushed by CORE and other militant groups. He also hoped that increased
black electoral numbers would strengthen the liberal wing of the
Democratic Party.
Kennedy saw the Justice Department as the main instrument of his civil
rights agenda, not the Civil Rights Commission that had been established
in 1957 under Eisenhower as part of the Civil Rights Act. Several
degrees to the left of Kennedy, the Commission was seen as something
akin to Reconstruction and, therefore, unwelcome. In his best-selling
"Profiles in Courage," Kennedy referred to Reconstruction as a "black
nightmare…nourished by Federal bayonets." When the Civil Rights
Commission announced its attention to investigate racist violence
inMississippi, Robert F. Kennedy likened it to HUAC "investigating
Communism."
Not only were theKennedyshostile to the Civil Rights Commission; they
appointed 5 segregationist judges to the federal bench, including Harold
Cox, who had referred to blacks as "niggers" and "chimpanzees." Robert
F. Kennedy preferred Cox toThurgoodMarshall whom he described as
"basically second-rate." Kennedy frequently turned to Mississippi
Senator James Eastland for advice on appointments. According to
long-time activist VirginiaDurr, Eastland would "invite people over for
the weekend and tell them to 'pick out a nigger girl and a horse!' That
was his way of showing hospitality."
Even in their selection of voter registration as the least
confrontational tactic in the South, theKennedyswere loath to put the
power of the federal government behind it. When the KKK targeted civil
rights workers trying to register black voters, Robert F. Kennedy bent
over backwards to appear conciliatory toward the racists. He said, "We
abandoned the solution, really, of trying to give people protection."
This indifference was one of the main reasons the racists felt free to
kill activists in theDeep South.
One such assassination took the life of NAACP leaderMedgarEvers, who was
gunned down in the driveway of his home. In keeping with
hisaccomodationistpolicies, Robert F. Kennedy told the media that the
federal government had no authority to protect Evers or anybody else.
Such responsibilities rested with the state ofMississippi!
The mass movement against racial discrimination continued unabated,
without the support of the Kennedy White House. In 1963 demonstrations
inBirmingham,Alabamaunleashed attacks by Police Commissioner Bull Connor
who used nightsticks, police dogs and high-pressure fire hoses and mass
arrests. JFK complained about the protests that they made theUSA"look
bad for us in the world." His brother opined that 90 percent of the
protestors had no idea what they were demonstrating about.
Despite Robert F. Kennedy's specious comparison of the Civil Rights
Commission to HUAC, he had no problem directing a witch-hunt against
Martin Luther King Jr. When the FBI told the President that King's
advisors included a couple of Communists (SanfordLevisonand Jack
O'Dell), he directed the attorney general to put wiretaps on the civil
rights movements most important leader's telephone. He even met with
King at the White House and told him, "They're communists. You've got to
get rid of them." To his everlasting credit, King refused to kowtow to
the red-baiters. Robert F. Kennedy would complain, "He sort of laughs
about these things, makes fun of it."
Relying on J. Edgar Hoover's snitches says volumes about the character
of the Kennedy White House. Feeling no constraints from its master, the
FBI would eventually send letters to King's wife accusing him of
infidelity. It would also fail to protect civil rights demonstrators,
who were obviously seen as Communist subversives.
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