Civil rights movement

=== "Rising tide of discontent" and Kennedy's response, 1963 ===
{{Main|Gloria Richardson|Stand in the Schoolhouse Door|Civil Rights Address}}

Birmingham was only one of over a hundred cities rocked by the chaotic protest that spring and summer, some of them in the North but mainly in the South. During the March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. would refer to such protests as "the whirlwinds of revolt." In Chicago, blacks rioted through the South Side in late May after a white police officer shot a fourteen-year-old black boy who was fleeing the scene of a robbery.<ref name="Nicholas Andrew Bryant 2006 pg. 2">Nicholas Andrew Bryant, ''The Bystander: John F. Kennedy And the Struggle for Black Equality'' (Basic Books, 2006), p. 2</ref> Violent clashes between black activists and white workers took place in both Philadelphia and Harlem in successful efforts to integrate state construction projects.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://intellhisblackamerica.voices.wooster.edu/files/2012/03/Thomas_Sugrue_Affirmative_Action_from_Below.pdf| title = Thomas J Sugrue, "Affirmative Action from Below: Civil Rights, Building Trades, and the Politics of Racial Equality in the Urban North, 1945–1969" ''The Journal of American History'', Vol. 91, Issue 1}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/events/4279/civil_rights_movement/532945 |title=Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission website, "The Civil Rights Movement" }}</ref> On June 6, over a thousand whites attacked a sit-in in Lexington, North Carolina; blacks fought back and one white man was killed.<ref>T [https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/2922918/ he Daily Capital News(Missouri) June 14, 1963, p. 4] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925190639/http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/2922918/ |date=September 25, 2015 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BU8cAAAAIBAJ&pg=2472,3798134&dq=north%20carolina%201963%20riot&hl=en |title=The Dispatch&nbsp;– Google News Archive Search |access-date=July 29, 2016}}</ref> Edwin C. Berry of the National Urban League warned of a complete breakdown in race relations: "My message from the beer gardens and the barbershops all indicate the fact that the Negro is ready for war."<ref name="Nicholas Andrew Bryant 2006 pg. 2" />

In [[Cambridge, Maryland]], a working‐class city on the [[Eastern Shore of Maryland|Eastern Shore]], [[Gloria Richardson]] of SNCC led a movement that pressed for desegregation but also demanded low‐rent public housing, job‐training, public and private jobs, and an end to police brutality.<ref name="Jackson167">{{cite book |last1=Jackson |first1=Thomas F. |title=From Civil Rights to Human Rights |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |location=Philadelphia |page=167 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6YwXAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA167 |isbn=978-0-8122-0000-3 |date=2013}}</ref> On June 11, struggles between blacks and whites [[Cambridge riot of 1963|escalated into violent rioting]], leading Maryland Governor [[J. Millard Tawes]] to declare [[martial law]]. When negotiations between Richardson and Maryland officials faltered, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy directly intervened to negotiate a desegregation agreement.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://teaching.msa.maryland.gov/000001/000000/000033/html/t33.html |title=Teaching American History in Maryland&nbsp;– Documents for the Classroom&nbsp;– Maryland State Archives |access-date=July 29, 2016}}</ref> Richardson felt that the increasing participation of poor and working-class blacks was expanding both the power and parameters of the movement, asserting that "the people as a whole really do have more intelligence than a few of their leaders.ʺ<ref name="Jackson167" />

In their deliberations during this wave of protests, the Kennedy administration privately felt that militant demonstrations were ʺbad for the countryʺ and that "Negroes are going to push this thing too far."<ref name="web1.millercenter.org">{{Cite web|url=http://web1.millercenter.org/apd/colloquia/pdf/col_2008_0410_jackson.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606153917/http://web1.millercenter.org/apd/colloquia/pdf/col_2008_0410_jackson.pdf |archive-date=2011-06-06 |url-status=live|title=Thomas F. Jackson, "Jobs and Freedom: The Black Revolt of 1963 and the Contested Meanings of the March on Washington" ''Virginia Foundation for the Humanities'' April 2, 2008, pp. 10–14}}</ref> On May 24, Robert Kennedy had a [[Baldwin-Kennedy meeting|meeting with prominent black intellectuals]] to discuss the racial situation. The black delegation criticized Kennedy harshly for vacillating on civil rights and said that the African-American community's thoughts were increasingly turning to violence. The meeting ended with ill will on all sides.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2009/05/clip_job_miss_h.php |title=Miss Lorraine Hansberry & Bobby Kennedy |first=Tony |last=Ortega |date=May 4, 2009 |access-date=July 29, 2016  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121018054636/http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2009/05/clip_job_miss_h.php |archive-date=October 18, 2012 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Za8TAQAAQBAJ |title=Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector |first=James |last=Hilty |date=2000 |publisher=Temple University Press |access-date=July 29, 2016 |via=Google Books |isbn=978-1-4399-0519-7}}</ref><ref name=Schlesinger333>Schlesinger, ''Robert Kennedy and His Times'' (1978), pp. 332–333.</ref> Nonetheless, the Kennedys ultimately decided that new legislation for equal public accommodations was essential to drive activists "into the courts and out of the streets."<ref name="web1.millercenter.org" /><ref>{{cite web |url = http://jah.oxfordjournals.org/content/93/4/1319.1.extract |title = "Book Reviews-The Bystander by Nicholas A. Bryant" ''The Journal of American History'' (2007) 93 (4) |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121010023123/http://jah.oxfordjournals.org/content/93/4/1319.1.extract |archive-date=October 10, 2012 }}</ref>[[File:March on Washington edit.jpg|thumb|The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at the [[National Mall]]]]
[[File:Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. (Leaders of the march posing in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln... - NARA - 542063 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Leaders of the March on Washington posing before the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963]]
On June 11, 1963, [[George Wallace]], Governor of Alabama, tried [[Stand in the Schoolhouse Door|to block]]<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis63.htm#1963tuscaloosa Standing In the Schoolhouse Door] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090615060449/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis63.htm#1963tuscaloosa |date=June 15, 2009 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> the integration of the [[University of Alabama]]. President John F. Kennedy sent a military force to make Governor Wallace step aside, allowing the enrollment of [[Vivian Malone Jones]] and [[James Hood]]. That evening, President Kennedy addressed the nation on TV and radio with his historic [[Civil Rights Address|civil rights speech]], where he lamented "a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety." He called on Congress to pass new civil rights legislation, and urged the country to embrace civil rights as "a moral issue...in our daily lives."<ref>"Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights," June 11, 1963, [http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03CivilRights06111963.htm transcript from the JFK library.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070205051926/http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical%2BResources/Archives/Reference%2BDesk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03CivilRights06111963.htm |date=February 5, 2007 }}</ref> In the early hours of June 12, [[Medgar Evers]], field secretary of the Mississippi NAACP, was assassinated by a member of the Klan.<ref>[http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/dir/evers_medgar/ Medgar Evers] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051107211340/http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/dir/evers_medgar/ |date=November 7, 2005 }}, a worthwhile article, on ''The Mississippi Writers Page'', a website of the University of Mississippi English Department.</ref><ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis63.htm#1963medgar Medgar Evers Assassination] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090615060449/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis63.htm#1963medgar |date=June 15, 2009 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> The next week, as promised, on June 19, 1963, President Kennedy submitted his Civil Rights bill to Congress.<ref name="abbeville">[http://www.abbeville.com/civilrights/washington.asp Civil Rights bill submitted, and date of JFK murder, plus graphic events of the March on Washington.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012121716/http://abbeville.com/civilrights/washington.asp |date=October 12, 2007 }} This is an Abbeville Press website, a large informative article apparently from the book ''The Civil Rights Movement'' ({{ISBN|0-7892-0123-2}}).</ref>