June 11 - BlackFacts.com Black History Minute

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for June 11.

Kennedy's Report to the American People on Civil Rights.

It was a speech on civil rights, delivered on radio and television by President John F. Kennedy from the Oval Office in which he proposed legislation that would later become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Kennedy was initially cautious in his support of civil rights and desegregation in the United States. As his term continued, African Americans became increasingly impatient with their lack of social progress and racial tensions escalated.

His administration had sent National Guard troops to accompany the first black students admitted to the University of Mississippi and the University of Alabama.

In the speech, Kennedy announced that he would be sending civil rights legislation to Congress; that legislation was passed after his death and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Kennedy called Americans to recognize civil rights as a moral cause to which all people need to contribute and was "as clear as the American Constitution."

Martin Luther King, Jr., called the speech “one of the most eloquent, profound, and unequivocal pleas for Justice and Freedom of all men ever made by any President.”

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