 FILE – In this Aug. 28, 1963 file photo, President Kennedy stands with a group of leaders of the March on Washington at the White House in Washington. Immediately after the march, they discussed civil rights legislation that was finally inching through Congress. The leaders pressed Kennedy to strengthen the legislation; the president listed many obstacles. Historians generally agree that Kennedy’s phone call to Coretta Scott King expressing concern over her husband’s arrest in October 1960 — a |
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Courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum. Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights
In 1963, Civil Rights protests became increasingly confrontational as Birmingham, Alabama's police commissioner, Eugene "Bull" Connor, crushed a nonviolent protest with extreme force. In June 1963, Alabama Gov. George Wallace refused to allow two black students to enter the University of Alabama forcing President Kennedy to use the National Guard to ensure the safety of the
