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John F. Kennedy, a young senator from Massachusetts, won the 1960 presidential election against his opponent the Republican, Richard Nixon. He was only 43, the youngest president ever elected.

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As a congressman 1947 to 1953, and then as a senator from 1953 to 1960, Kennedy voted in favor of most civil rights bills.  This included the anti-poll tax bill and another bill that integrated the Women's Reserve of the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. He then led an unsuccessful fight to give desegregate the District of Columbia, where blacks were still segregated. There were approximately sixty thousand black voters in Massachusetts and their support was a decisive factor in Kennedy's slim victory over the Republican Henry Cabot Lodge for a Senate seat.

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Few black leaders initially endorsed Kennedy when he ran for president in 1960, which led would have led to a loss in the election. Roy O. Wilkins, executive secretary for the NAACP, was quoted saying that Kennedy had no strong feelings on civil rights. Americans for Democratic Action, an influential left-wing group, initially refused to support his bid for the Democratic nomination because of his slow response to civil rights.

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Nixon's inaction combined with Kennedy's phone call a month before the election to the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. when King was being held in a Georgia jail, boosted support for Kennedy among blacks and helped him achieve their vote. Kennedy's gradualist policy on civil rights was cautious enough to win the support of southern segregationists as well, bringing him victory in the election. Kennedy's fear that as a northerner and a Catholic he would fare poorly in the south was a major reason why he selected Lyndon B. Johnson, a native of Texas, as his running mate.

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Dubbed the New Frontier, the new Kennedy administration sought to minimize the potential for conflict by reacting to civil rights events instead of initiating them. In early 1961 Kennedy asked Harris Wofford, his coordinator for civil rights, to prevent the Freedom Rides from occurring; having a change of heart, he assigned federal marshals to protect the riders. With the Cold War at its apex, Kennedy feared that a struggle with white southerners would cast the nation in a negative light internationally and would thus make his negotiations with the nation's enemies more difficult, which in turn pushed him to become more serious about the domestic issues of his time.

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The Kennedy administration preferred to deal with civil rights indirectly. Kennedy appointed ten blacks as judges but none to positions in the South. Another of the administration's favorite strategies was to ask businesses and other organizations to desegregate on a voluntary basis. Neither strategy was particularly effective.

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On June 11th, 1963, the governor of Alabama, George Wallace stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama to prevent two black students from registering. Kennedy again sent in federal marshals. Later that night, Kennedy delivered a nationally televised speech urging faster progress on civil rights, and he proposed a civil rights bill, the strongest since Reconstruction. Robert Kennedy was a point man for the bill, appearing several times before Congress to urge its passage. The bill passed after Kennedy's assassination and became the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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Meanwhile, for months civil rights organizers planned a massive march on Washington, D.C. Kennedy, fearing violence and the images of it that would be broadcast around the world attempted to prevent the march. When organizers went ahead with their plans, Kennedy helped organize the largest security force in the history of the capital to ensure that the march was not scarred by violence. Kennedy did not attend the march; instead, he met with advisers about the crisis in South Vietnam. But after the march, which was held on August 28th, 1963, Kennedy did meet with its organizers at the White House, where the organizers unsuccessfully tried to convince him to strengthen his civil rights legislation.

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Smith, Robert C. “Kennedy, John F.” Encyclopedia of African-American Politics, Second Edition, Facts On File, 2014. African-American History, online.infobase.com/HRC/Search/Details/159195?q=Kennedy, John F. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.

Wexler, Sanford. “Kennedy, John F.” Civil Rights Movement, Facts On File, 1999. African-American History, online.infobase.com/HRC/Search/Details/158684?q=Kennedy, John F. Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.

McMurray, Matthew. "Kennedy, John F., Administration Of." Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century. Ed. Paul FinkelmanNew York: Oxford UP, 2008. Oxford African American Studies Center. Thu Nov 02 10:23:51 EDT 2017. <http://www.oxfordaasc.com/article/opr/t0005/e0684>.