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

Nick Bryant (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 29, 2006

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this critical look at Kennedy's handling of the civil rights struggle, Bryant, a former BBC Washington correspondent, provides a riveting but flawed read. From Kennedy's first campaign for Congress, when he targeted black voters, to his last days wooing Southern moderates in Texas, this narrowly focused book depicts Kennedy as a "minimalist" whose "sometimes cynical, sometimes sincere" manipulation of black opinion gave him a false sense of accomplishment. It shows how Kennedy swerved from rapprochement with segregationist Democrats during his failed bid for the vice-presidency in 1956 to the liberal vanguard during his run for president. Bryant claims that until halfway through his presidency, Kennedy viewed the race problem with "cool detachment," worrying mainly that the Soviet Union would cast the U.S. as weak on human rights. His taste for "piecemeal reform" might have worked with the wider public, Bryant argues, but it emboldened both white and black militants, and his call for legislation to speed up school desegregation came too late. By the time he was assassinated, Kennedy had "abdicated his responsibility to lead the great social revolution of his age," Bryant asserts. While that may be true, this well-written book fails to consider the immense distractions of the other historic struggle that Kennedy faced: the Cold War, at its height. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Bryant seamlessly explicates the years of Kennedy's first campaign for public office in 1946, his rise in the U.S. Senate, and his successful presidential campaign of 1960 to illustrate how he deftly handled civil-rights issues to gain crucial political support from southern whites and blacks, as well as from urban black populations in the north. Without a clear statement during most of his presidency, however, Kennedy provided fuel for staunch white supremacists to maintain segregation, causing black activist groups to seek militant responses--a combination that led to some of the most violent outbreaks of the early 1960s. Through manuscripts, letters, exclusive interviews, and audiotape recordings, Bryant illuminates the play-by-play between politicians and activists surrounding election campaigns, speeches, meetings, and legislation at every civil rights-related turn of Kennedy's public service, while effectively narrating the political and social swelling and aftermath of such high-tension episodes as the Freedom Rides, James Meredith's enrollment in the University of Mississippi, and the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. A meticulously researched volume. Elliot Mandel
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 576 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; annotated edition edition (May 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465008267
• ISBN-13: 978-0465008261
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,444,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Civil Rights or Bust, March 26, 2007

By 

BeatleBangs1964 (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality (Hardcover)

This book is one of the more objective books about President Kennedy. It explores his seemingly lackadaisical attitude in re civil rights. He is described as being charismatic, yet lacking in personal depth. He was excellent at taking written material, courtesy of his speech/script writers and giving an outstanding performance.

This is not to discredit the man's obvious intelligence and ability to respond to the issues and questions of the day. His alliances with people who were known segregationists don't exactly point him in the direction of civil rights activists. His brother, then attorney general Robert Kennedy was the fire, the drive, the passion and commitment to civil rights.

While the civil rights/racial equality issue is the main focus of this book, other issues during the New Frontier are also explored. This is a well written book that will certainly maintain the interest of readers.

10 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another view of JFK, July 15, 2006

By 

J. Adams "History buff" (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality (Hardcover)

Most of Kennedy's biographers fall into two camps; hagiographers like Goodwin and Schlesinger and dozens of others, or much more honest examinations of the character of the man like Thomas Reeves very good book. The hags have outnumbered the wags by at least ten to one, but this book is a good addition to the latter camp.

This way-too-long book has many good examples of how JFK really did not have some burning commitment to civil rights (or much of anything else for that matter) and was really a fairly shallow man with good speech writers who could turn a phrase and have Kennedy deliver it with passion. His willingness to appoint segregationists such as William Cox to the federal bench and his friendships with Senate bigots such as Al Gore Sr. and Bill Clinton's hero, William Fulbright, shows him to be far less the advocate of civil rights than his hagiographers have made him out to be.

Much of this book is focused on the civil rights for blacks movement, but there are some good insights into other issues that were front and center at the time.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars JFK and understanding the Black community, September 27, 2007

By 

Andrew T. Kiln (Ramsgate ,UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality (Hardcover)

An interesting look at the junior JFK and how he shaped his view of the Black community and his understanding of how to move up in politics.