JFK: pressures for change

Question 1

Kennedy’s response to pressures of change for CR

Answer 1

• events of Birmingham and washington prompted Kennedy to draft a civil rights bill more comprehensive than Eisenhower’s
• included promise to give everyone right to be served in facilities open to the public
• eventual pill strengthened in the committee stage when Emmanuel Cellar (NY democrat) added provisions banning racial discrimination and eliminated segregation

Question 2

awareness of ‘‘the other America’ (poverty) in kennedy’s presidency

Answer 2

• kennedy well aware of poverty issue
• influenced by:
• Galbraith’s ‘the affluent society’ (1958): emphesised poverty of a permanent American underclass
• Micheal Harringtons ‘the other america’: describes poverty of 40-60 million americans
• Dwight Macdonald’s New Yorker essay-review on the invisisble pooor

Question 3

growing pressure for social change + formation of social groups

Answer 3

• success of CRM prompted other gorups to begin xampaigning for their rights
• National Congress for Americna Indians (NCAI) founded in 1944 but 1961 there was formation of National Indian Youth Council (NIYC)
• groups adapted tactics of CRM to assert rights
• Hispanic movements also formed: 1962 Cesar Chevaz formed United Farm Workers Union to allow Mexican American Labourers to protect themsleves against their working conditions

Question 4

rights for women

Answer 4

• 1960: former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt persuaded K to set up presidential commission on status of women, reported: (1963)
• women made up 50% workforce
• 95% managers were male
• only 4% were lawyers
• 7% were doctors
• 80% teachers but only 10% principles
• only earnt 55% of what men earnt
• 18 states refused to allow female jurors
• 6 said women couldnt enter into financial agreements without male co-signatory
• school expelled pregnant students
• fired pregnant teachers

Question 5

Woman’s activism

Answer 5

• congresswoman martha Griffiths scolded airline that fired women when they married / reached age of 30
• National womens party (1916) still active, demanded equal rights amendment
• Betty Friedan’s ‘the feminine mystique’ 1963
• baby boom after WW2 = betty described as comfortable concentration camp
• k introduced equal pay act signed June 1963 part of new frontier - banned sexual discrimination in workplace
• no equal rights amendment