President John F. Kennedy

When Alabama Governor George Wallace tried to block two black students from entering UA by standing in front of the registration building door, Kennedy leveraged the U.S. Army to allow them to enroll. He also used the situation as a platform to address civil rights as a “moral issue.”

“It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution,” Kennedy said. “The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?”

One week later, President Kennedy told Congress that the new civil rights laws he proposed involved every American’s right to vote, to go to school, to get a job, and to be served in a public place without arbitrary discrimination – rights that most Americans now take for granted. The Civil Rights Act of 1963 had eight sections and included laws to guarantee all people would have equal access to hotels, restaurants and other public sites.

The act passed after one year and became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Assassinated in November 1963, Kennedy never had the opportunity to see it signed into law.

During his inaugural address on January 20, 1961, Kennedy said, “All this will not be finished in the first hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first thousand days, nor in the lifetime of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

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