The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality

by Nick Bryant

In the summer of 1963, in the wake of the Birmingham riots and hundreds of other protests across the country, John F. Kennedy advanced the most far-reaching civil rights bill ever put before Congress. Why had he waited so long? Kennedy had been acutely aware of the issue of race--both its political perils and opportunities--since his first Congressional campaign in Boston in 1946. In this, the first comprehensive history of Kennedy's civil rights record over the course of his entire political career, Nick Bryant shows that Kennedy's shrewd handling of the race issue in his early congressional campaigns blinded him as President to the intractability of the simmering racial crisis in America. By focusing on purely symbolic gestures, Kennedy missed crucial opportunities to confront the obstructionist Southern bloc and to enact genuine reform. Kennedy's inertia emboldened white supremacists, and forced discouraged black activists to adopt increasingly militant tactics. At the outset of his presidency, Kennedy squandered the chance to forge a national consensus on race. For many of his thousand days in office, he remained a bystander as the civil rights battle flared in the streets of America. In the final months of his life, Kennedy could no longer control the rage he had fueled with his erratic handling of this explosive issue.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Race

576 pages, Hardcover

First published May 29, 2006

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name on GR

Reviews

[Lobstergirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A superbly researched book, years in the making. Kennedy overpromised on civil rights during his presidential campaign; everything afterwards was a letdown. He was deathly afraid of offending the segregationist Southerners in Congress he thought he needed to pass his legislation. Because he remained hugely popular with black voters regardless of how diligently he worked on civil rights, he could afford politically to limit his efforts to gradualist policies, and did. Black leaders and activists grew increasingly frustrated, even disgusted with him; they recognized, even if voters didn't, that most of his outreach to the black community was symbolic and that being seen with a small number of black staffers was tokenism rather than meaningful change. He was willing to expend some effort on voting rights, but almost nothing on school desegregation, or desegregation in general. His public rhetoric on civil rights was dispassionate and anemic up until the summer before his death. While Robert Kennedy fairly quickly came to see civil rights as a moral issue, JFK, who viewed most things through the prism of foreign policy, primarily saw America's race problem as a propaganda tool that the Soviets could use against him. He and RFK (his Attorney General) badly mangled the federal response before, during and after all sorts of episodes such as the violence against the Freedom Riders in 1961 and James Meredith's enrollment at the University of Mississippi in 1962. He brought about the appointment of many segregationist or white supremacist judges. He didn't attend the funerals of any of the four black schoolgirls killed in the Birmingham church bombing of 1963. Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't invited to his funeral, and had to watch from the sidewalk outside.

Answer all my trivia questions about the book here - they're really easy! And extremely educational.

https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A much needed correction of that nonsense we call "Camelot." This book reveals the vacuity of JFK and RFK, mere non-entites whose primary concern was self-glorification and anti-communism, mere puppets of that tyrannt of a father of theirs, who viewed them merely as instruments of his own rapacity. Presumption and vanity without substance or commitment, like rich folks generally, who have only the vaguest sense that people other than their kind have even a finger-tip grasp on a claim for existence. Certainly not blacks, whose lot under the savage brutality of Jim Crew amounted in their view to no more than an vague unpleasantness apart from its effectiveness in the Soviets' campaign to convince emerging African nations that "democracy" was a matter for whites only.
In all Bryant's findings convinced me that the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers weren't such terribly unfortunate events after all.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nick Bryant's The Bystander offers a thorough, devastating critique of John F. Kennedy's approach to Civil Rights and Black equality. Bryant follows many biographers in showing that Kennedy, while far from a bigot, viewed Civil Rights as primarily a political issue that he sought to defuse rather than resolve. Kennedy spent his congressional career befriending Southern congressmen who'd later become the bitterist enemies of integration, while having little contact with African Americans; additionally, his focus on foreign affairs over domestic matters made him ill-suited. Thus, the majority of his administration became mired in half-measures, skirmishes over integration and voting rights that Kennedy hoped he could easily win in court, if not public opinion. Bryant shows Kennedy deferential almost to an embarrassing degree to segregationists like John Patterson and Ross Barnett, despite the pleas of activists and the pressing of brother Bobby to do more, while remaining skeptical of Martin Luther King and other Black leaders. Which led to the mishandling of the Freedom Riders and the Ole Miss crisis. In the waning days of his Administration, Bryant shows, Kennedy did make a strong and sincere leap towards becoming an active ally...but his plan for a new Civil Rights Act had stalled by the time of his death, leaving his successor to pass it. A harsh look at a president's bungled response to the most pressing moral issue of his time.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thirteen years in New England Catholic schools can give you a certain…slanted view of President Kennedy. Bryant presents the other side of the coin, painting the 35th President as weak, limited, passive, and really, an empty suit. Bryant focuses narrowly on Kennedy’s domestic civil rights fumbles 1960-63, effectively arguing that the President’s missteps and unreasonable timidity extended segregation and betrayed black Americans. Bryant digs below the surface of the President’s strong contemporary approval ratings and posthumous glorification and eviscerates the President’s and Attorney General’s record. This was the most critical book of Kennedy I can ever recall, and Bryant hit a home run with the depth of his research and defense of his theses.

[muraguri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting insight into Kennedy's relations with Congress as well as his motives behind his civil rights strategy...or lack thereof. Shatters myths about him being another great emancipator. Stay black.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most comprehensive work on John F. Kennedy's civil rights record probably in existence. Well researched and easy to digest.

My only complaint is the lack of coverage on other important elements of the decade, like the Cold War, other social movements, etc. I've read other historians' works that make a point to note how everything related to the sixties was interconnected and necessary to understand the era. This book focuses solely on Kennedy's ideology and policies relating to civil rights and loses some nuance because of it.

My face though when Bryant closes with the hardest mic drop of all time, noting Kennedy as nothing more than a Bystander in the fight for equality after 473 pages demonstrating exactly that:

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best history books I've read in a long time, though I will admit that the fact that I agreed with its premise (clear from the title) before I started reading could have impacted my reaction. That said, though, despite familiarity with most of the key touchstone civil rights events of JFK's presidency, seeing the discussions they prompted and reading the reactions from various communities to JFK's choices was thrilling. The second half of the book really feels like narrative story, so effective is Bryant's telling, and so compelling is his presentation of details and personality. A truly magnificent work.

[Poppy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty fascinating perspective on JFK.