Kennedy and Mississippi
LOMAX, LOUIS E.
Two Articles Kennedy Mississippi By Louis E. Lomax "Mississippi" is a chilling word. It can, and often does, mean misery, death, hate, racism and lynchings. Little wonder, then, that the...
...The Meredith case has given us the most definitive statement of the Kennedy Administration's true civil rights program to date...
...Any Negro could have told President Kennedy that the Mississippi power structure cannot be bargained with...
...This is the essential difference between President Kennedy and James Meredith: Meredith is driven by a deep concern for justice, and his concern is born of personal suffering...
...Many of us were surprised, therefore, at the tone of the President's speech on the Sunday night before the violence flared in Mississippi...
...it means being handled by someone who is obsessed by what he deems to be a God-given right to humiliate and, if necessary, destroy you...
...but for the fact that it already has, I would be the first to insist that it could not happen here...
...Why, then, did the President maintain his posture of appeasement by words...
...during that same campaign many liberals became uneasy when Senator Kennedy sat down and broke bread with Governor John Patterson of Alabama and came away with an endorsement...
...I doubt that we will have to go through all of this again in other states...
...They had no qualms about campaigning on the civil rights platitudes in the Democratic platform, yet they shy away from close identification with such bold and open moves as the Meredith case involved...
...It is now clear, however, that the Kennedys will act when the issue is translated from the plain question of civil rights to the deeper (for the Administration, that is) one of flouting the Federal Government...
...In the case of James Meredith, the State has more than lived up to its advance notices...
...And there is no greater pain than being treated colored by a white Mississippian...
...Many a child has had a parent spank him and say, "This hurts me more than it does you,' but we never knew what the phrase really meant until Kennedy's speech...
...At first I was frightened...
...I believe it can...
...It also knows that when the White House thunders, the local chapters of the National Guard are forced into Federal service and even Governor Barnett's son must take up arms against Mississippi...
...Like most Americans, I watched the events on television...
...The Deep South knows that Jack and Bobby Kennedy can be a lethal pair when defied...
...So, some good has actually come out of the Meredith case...
...Since the election, we have been disturbed by the President's failure to desegregate Federally aided housing with a "stroke of the pen," an act Kennedy chided President Eisenhower for not taking...
...Since the Federal Government cannot allow either humiliation or destruction, it became necessary to humiliate Mississippi...
...the Federal law is with him...
...Unlike most Americans, I was privy to some of the background moves that set the stage for racist hysteria on the campus of "Ole Miss...
...Louis E. Lomax, a regular contributor, is the author of The Negro Revolt and The Reluctant African...
...Once the University of Mississippi settles down-and there will be more Negroes there soon-the point will have been made...
...When those who carry this burden cry aloud, the President hears the words and agrees with the logic...
...And this, apparently, is the way the President wanted it...
...This is the way today's Negro heroes think...
...Most of all, the Meredith case has all but turned Kennedy into a feeling liberal...
...Like most white liberals, Kennedy, if pushed, will give the right responses...
...And the President's call of the roll of distinguished Mississippians whom nobody knew was so clearly an effort to please rather than scold the offenders that his sincerity would have been questioned had his actions not been so sweeping...
...I think the answer lies in the fact that, as many of us have suspected for some time, Kennedy is not a flaming liberal...
...but he does not share the feeling...
...For this let us all give thanks...
...And even as the President exhorted the students to uphold the "great tradition" of the University of Mississippi, the students were engaged in an all-out attack on the Federal marshals...
...I am convinced the Administration stands for full equality, but I am equally convinced that open battles on the race question chill both the President and the Attorney General...
...We now know what it takes to make Kennedy act...
...In addition, the Meredith affair may have broken the back of resistance in the Deep South...
...Whatever 11th hour talks caused Kennedy to delay his speech for two-and-a-half hours broke down: Governor Ross Barnett broke his promise to maintain law and order on the campus once Meredith was enrolled, and former Major...
...The unpublicized efforts to get Meredith enrolled without major incident would fill a large volume...
...Even to a TV viewer, it was obvious they had virtually incited the people to riot and murder...
...I have seen and worked with them on Freedom Rides and Sit-ins, and I know that their concerns are beyond life and death...
...but he does not feel...
...One has only to read the newspapers to realize that every time the Kennedys have attempted to placate the South, the South has replied in anger and bitterness-and embarrassment for the Administration...
...During the 1960 campaign it was recalled that he failed the cause of liberalism when the McCarthy issue arose...
...The law of Mississippi is against James Meredith...
...General Walker stormed onto the campus to lead the popbottle-and-brick brigade against Federal authority...
...What with wealth, position and political power, he has never felt the sting of denial and discrimination...
...The Meredith case has also taught us that the Administration is still frightened by the Deep South...
...The White House's line to Mississippi was open...
...Meredith knew he was walking into fire and, 1 suspect, he will one day tell the truth and say he was ready to die, that he and his wife had sat alone while he made peace with his Maker...
...Kennedy's aides had a play-by-play account of what was transpiring...
...Meredith and others like him know well and feel deeply what they are doing...
...It is almost beyond civilized belief that in this the era of the Berlin wall, the Bay of Pigs and the frenetic and chauvinistic race for the outer edges of space, elected State officials would demonstrate such raw ignorance of inner space-that is to say, the true soul and meaning of man...
...They deal in such things as justice, truth, equality and freedom -values dimly seen and little understood by our violent culture, contorted, as it most certainly is, by the cold war...
...the President is driven by a concern for law and order, and his concern is born of personal experience in an environment where law and order were equated with righteousness...
...Not only was Southern political support lackluster, but the Southern delegation to Congress has allied with the enemy to fight most of the Kennedy program-and its opposition goes beyond civil rights...
...One only hopes that it will not be necessary to destroy it...
...But can anything good come out of Mississippi versus civilization...
...The Meredith affair is from the evil books of the 13th and 14th centuries...
...Now we know that the Kennedys-the President and the Attorney Generalare by nature "behind-the-scenes" men...
...We applauded Kennedy's stand, but his words seemed too mild, his plea to the lawbreakers to become Little Lord Fauntleroys naive...
...Considered against this gain, the pain of the Meredith case has been slight...
...Needless to say, though, law and order-particularly in the deep South-often stand with the status quo...
...The Kennedys take such acts as a personal affront, and the staggering Federal presence now in Mississippi is testimony to what the Administration will do if provoked...
...Little wonder, then, that the entire nationand most of the world-becomes uneasy each time a dispatch appears in the newspaper datelined "Mississippi...
...Had they borne fruit, the Administration would have received little or no credit...
...But the Administration did its best to avoid a clear resolution of the conflict...
...Indeed, it already has...
...They walk into the howling jaws of danger certain that from their sacrifice a great good will emerge...
...For a man like Meredith has already set himself before he makes such a move...
...The Mississippi officials were clearly wrong...
...The blunt truth is, John F. Kennedy has never had his liberties threatened...
...And without the proper feeling, even sending troops to Mississippi becomes a tortured Executive act rather than a spiritual move made in the name of decency...
...more for the rest of us than for James Meredith...
...Yet the President was loathe to give them the public spanking they not only deserved but, I suspect, wanted...
...This is odd: The Deep South meant little to the Kennedys in 1960 and means even less to them in 1962...
...Yet Mississippi officials, with a lusty assist from their constituency, have done just that...
...The President now knows, first-hand, the meanness and hate that can come from the deep South...
...Brother Kennedy got the message: They were treating him as if he were colored...
Vol. 45 • October 1962 • No. 21
