Opening the Doors: The Desegregation of the University of Alabama and the Fight for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa

12. New Students, New Strategy: June 11–July 1963

chapter 12 New Students, New Strategy June 11–July 1963 Whenever you go to a new place you expect to be lonesome at first. Motivated by the success in Tuscaloosa, President Kennedy informed his aides that he planned to address the nation that very night, interrupting regularly scheduled programs to outline his proposal for civil rights legislation. While the possibility of a televised speech had floated through­ out the Oval Office in the weeks prior to the stand, much of Kennedy’s inner circle opposed it, believing a civil rights speech should come as a result of legislation rather than a call for it. Yet Kennedy’s conviction was buoyed by Hood and Malone’s registration, and his insistence that he address the nation that night sent speechwriters and advisors scurrying to hash out the wording. Ted Sorensen and President Kennedy had watched Wallace’s stand from theOvalOffice,SorensenrecallingthatassoonasWallaceabandonedhisposition the president turned to him and announced, “I think we’d better give that speech tonight.” It was already 4:30 p.m. east­ern time (3:30 p.m. in Alabama), and the presi­ dent’s call for an 8:00 p.m. television address left precious little time for Sorensen to draft the speech. 98 The Stand As Sorensen continued pounding out one speech, Robert Kennedy revealedhispersonalfeelingsbycraftinganother .“Ihopewhenyouare Attorney General,” Kennedy began in a letter to his five-­ year-­ old son, Michael, “these kind of things will not go on.” According to James Hood, following the successful desegregation efforts, he received a phone call from President Kennedy, who in the midst of his team hashing out the precise wording, read an excerpt aloud to the student. “He asked if I had any problems with what he was going to say about us or referring to us and I said I didn’t,” Hood recalled. “And he asked me did I thinkthatpeoplewouldunderstand.AndIsaid,‘Idon’tknow,’Ihadnoidea.” While Hood claimed to have received a sneak peek of the speech earlier that afternoon, the timelines don’t fully sync up. Kennedy may have called Hoodtoaskpermissiontopubliclypraisethestudent,thoughgiventhespeech’s last minute edits, it would have been all but impossible for Hood to have received the final version prior to the rest of the country. SorensenrecalledthestrenuouseditingprocessinwhichhemetwithRobert Kennedy, Burke Marshall, and the president in the hour prior to the address. ThepresidentchangedSorensen’sline,“Asocialrevolutionisathand,”toread, “A great change is at hand.” Likewise, Sorensen’s “But the pace is still shamefully slow” was revised to the far less damning “But the pace is very slow.” While seemingly minor changes, they served as proof of President Ken­ nedy’s mindfulness of his south­ ern audience. By nixing the phrases “social revolution” and “shamefully slow,” he managed to put out the wildfires before sparking them in the first place. Decades later, Sorensen confirmed that his speech was, in fact, “toned down, but its substance remained.” And by nightfall, millions of Ameri­ cans would hear it. % At 8:00 p.m. east­ern time, the country remained glued to their television sets, eagerly awaiting the message President Kennedy had long been reluctant to deliver. He began by reporting the happenings in Tuscaloosa, how the Alabama National Guardsmen had successfully carried out the court order demanding that “two clearly qualified young Alabama residents” be granted admission into the university. “That they were admitted peacefully on the campus is due in good mea- New Students, New Strategy 99 sure to the conduct of the students of the University of Alabama,” Kennedy affirmed, “who met their responsibilities in a constructive way.” After urging citizens to consider their own lives in respect to the race question , he promised that in one week’s time, he would ask Congress to “make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in Ameri­ can life or law.” He began outlining what would soon become the Civil Rights Act of 1964—sweeping social legislation that would forever alter the country’s moral compass and promise a new way of life. As expected, the speech garnered a mixedresponseinCongress.WhileSenateRepublicanleaderEverett M. Dirk­ sen of Illinois optimistically acknowledged the likelihood of civil rights legislationandpledgedhissupport ,DemocraticsenatorAllenJ.Ellenderof Louisiana predicted a far more ominous result: “If the President tries to enforce his legislative proposals I think it will mean violence.” As Kennedy concluded his speech, he was unaware that another voice would soon rush to his defense. So moved by Kennedy’s...