January 20, 1961, was a snow day. My Greely classmates on Chebeague Island did not have to get on the ferry and a small group of freshmen on the mainland gathered at Neva Cram’s house to take advantage of the day off, spend time with friends and watch the John F, Kennedy inauguration.
Neva's dad, Robert Cram was a Republican State Senator and his party had won the election in Maine, but our young Maine eyes liked what we saw in fellow New Englander John F.Kennedy.
Sen. Cram opined that 43-year-old Kennedy was too young to be President. But, when you’re 15, 43 looks about as old as you would ever want to be, and if a 15-year-old will not stand up for youth who will. In that spirit, demonstrating that I never really mastered the art of showing respect for my elders, I pointed out that Kennedy might be the youngest man elected President, but the youngest man to serve as President was Republican Teddy Roosevelt.
That brought out the World Book and I honestly tried to be humble when, sure enough, it was TR, not JFK.
At midday, we gathered by the TV to watch the inauguration. Old and young agreed that the weather was just as bad in DC as it was in Maine. Then we watched the shortest inauguration speech ever given, one now considered the second-best ever, after Abe Lincoln's Second Inaugural.
As good as the speech was, short shrift was given to one of the biggest issues JFK would face: race in America. Democrats had been doing the straddle on race for a generation as they tried to hold on to what had once been called the solid South and still win the Eastern cities where the black vote was often decisive. Kennedy, like FDR and Truman before him not only needed Southern electoral votes, he needed the support of Southern Senators to enact his program. So here he set out to be more of a follower than a bold leader.
But civil rights was an unstoppable force. History would not slow down to make life easy for Kennedy and two and a half years later the struggle with Alabama Governor George Wallace to open the doors of the University of Alabama to black students prompted Kennedy to take the issue head-on. The choice for America was clear, either attack the black leaders for causing all this unrest by demanding equal treatment or to join the fight to create an America that lived up to the promise of the Declaration of Independence, to finally embrace the idea that we are all created equal. Character is destiny as John McCain would write decades later and JFK endorsed the need for comprehensive civil rights legislation.
So in June of 1963, John Kennedy gave the other half of his inaugural, his Civil Rights Address. When Kennedy finished, Martin Luther King told friends, "Can you believe that white man not only stepped up to the plate, he hit it over the fence!"
In a matter of days, Attorney General Robert Kennedy carried a Civil Rights Bill to Congress. Just a year later, JFK was dead, and President Johnson, calling on support for the fallen President and his own legislative skills steered the Civil Rights Bill through Congress, and forces for good and evil were set loose which still divide our land.
The Civil Rights Bill of 1964 passed with Republican as well as Democratic votes in Congress. But in 1964 the Party of Lincoln nominated Senator Goldwater for President, a man who voted against the act. Goldwater lost but four years later Richard Nixon would bring a share of the Dixicrats and win the Presidency with the code words “Law and Order” and the "Silent Majority"
Looking back I confess that I never thought the backlash to the Civil Rights Act would be as strong or as long-lasting. BUT, more importantly, I never guessed the progress it would enable would be as quick and far-reaching. Or that one day I would take my children to watch a black man be sworn in as President, or that I would live to see a half black, half Indian woman sworn in as Vice President by a Latino Supreme Court Justice, or the State of Georgia would elect the black minister from Rev. King's pulpit and a Jew to give the Democrats leadership of the Senate.
So if this 75-year-old student of politics has anything to say to a 15-year-old high school freshman watching TV on January 20, 2021, on a day when Washington is an armed fortress, it is that the ties that bind are stronger than the forces that divide.
Think of it like race cars. Hate is a dragster fueled by nitromethane. Hate can really take off in a hurry and in doing so it causes quite a stink. But Hate will never with the LeMans, it is too difficult to steer past hazards and does not have the staying power needed to finish the race.
in the long run, an open heart will always triumph over a closed fist, Our lives are made more meaningful and safer by the people we embrace than by the people we shun. Long after the lynch mob slinks away to their individual lairs, those who can see past differences to serve common humanity are still together picking up the pieces and building for a common future.
Neva's dad, Robert Cram was a Republican State Senator and his party had won the election in Maine, but our young Maine eyes liked what we saw in fellow New Englander John F.Kennedy.
Sen. Cram opined that 43-year-old Kennedy was too young to be President. But, when you’re 15, 43 looks about as old as you would ever want to be, and if a 15-year-old will not stand up for youth who will. In that spirit, demonstrating that I never really mastered the art of showing respect for my elders, I pointed out that Kennedy might be the youngest man elected President, but the youngest man to serve as President was Republican Teddy Roosevelt.
That brought out the World Book and I honestly tried to be humble when, sure enough, it was TR, not JFK.
At midday, we gathered by the TV to watch the inauguration. Old and young agreed that the weather was just as bad in DC as it was in Maine. Then we watched the shortest inauguration speech ever given, one now considered the second-best ever, after Abe Lincoln's Second Inaugural.
As good as the speech was, short shrift was given to one of the biggest issues JFK would face: race in America. Democrats had been doing the straddle on race for a generation as they tried to hold on to what had once been called the solid South and still win the Eastern cities where the black vote was often decisive. Kennedy, like FDR and Truman before him not only needed Southern electoral votes, he needed the support of Southern Senators to enact his program. So here he set out to be more of a follower than a bold leader.
But civil rights was an unstoppable force. History would not slow down to make life easy for Kennedy and two and a half years later the struggle with Alabama Governor George Wallace to open the doors of the University of Alabama to black students prompted Kennedy to take the issue head-on. The choice for America was clear, either attack the black leaders for causing all this unrest by demanding equal treatment or to join the fight to create an America that lived up to the promise of the Declaration of Independence, to finally embrace the idea that we are all created equal. Character is destiny as John McCain would write decades later and JFK endorsed the need for comprehensive civil rights legislation.
So in June of 1963, John Kennedy gave the other half of his inaugural, his Civil Rights Address. When Kennedy finished, Martin Luther King told friends, "Can you believe that white man not only stepped up to the plate, he hit it over the fence!"
In a matter of days, Attorney General Robert Kennedy carried a Civil Rights Bill to Congress. Just a year later, JFK was dead, and President Johnson, calling on support for the fallen President and his own legislative skills steered the Civil Rights Bill through Congress, and forces for good and evil were set loose which still divide our land.
The Civil Rights Bill of 1964 passed with Republican as well as Democratic votes in Congress. But in 1964 the Party of Lincoln nominated Senator Goldwater for President, a man who voted against the act. Goldwater lost but four years later Richard Nixon would bring a share of the Dixicrats and win the Presidency with the code words “Law and Order” and the "Silent Majority"
Looking back I confess that I never thought the backlash to the Civil Rights Act would be as strong or as long-lasting. BUT, more importantly, I never guessed the progress it would enable would be as quick and far-reaching. Or that one day I would take my children to watch a black man be sworn in as President, or that I would live to see a half black, half Indian woman sworn in as Vice President by a Latino Supreme Court Justice, or the State of Georgia would elect the black minister from Rev. King's pulpit and a Jew to give the Democrats leadership of the Senate.
So if this 75-year-old student of politics has anything to say to a 15-year-old high school freshman watching TV on January 20, 2021, on a day when Washington is an armed fortress, it is that the ties that bind are stronger than the forces that divide.
Think of it like race cars. Hate is a dragster fueled by nitromethane. Hate can really take off in a hurry and in doing so it causes quite a stink. But Hate will never with the LeMans, it is too difficult to steer past hazards and does not have the staying power needed to finish the race.
in the long run, an open heart will always triumph over a closed fist, Our lives are made more meaningful and safer by the people we embrace than by the people we shun. Long after the lynch mob slinks away to their individual lairs, those who can see past differences to serve common humanity are still together picking up the pieces and building for a common future.